Instant Mac finished story
by Imp168
Summary: This story was originally CapitalC's work, and if you want a good summary, read hers, because, it would be much easier on the both of us!
1. Chapter 1

Instant Mac

A story continued from the hands of the Amazing Capitol-C into the

lowly hands of me, Imp168

Enjoy!

I do not own Foster's home for Imaginary Friends. Although I wish I did with all of my heart, I do not.

Tears of sadness

I don't even own most of the story line, because I stole this story from Capitol-C. More tears of sadness

I own me, though! XP …And for now, that's enough!! (Although I may throw in some

Of my own characters later! XP)

Goo sat behind her parents. She was in the middle seat, as they drove behind her best friend in the world and his family. They were on their way to spend a week in the woods as a joint family vacation. Goo was a little disappointed that she was not riding in the car with Mac, or he with her, but Goo's parents only wanted to have her in their car, for safety reasons, and Mac's mom wanted to have a chat with him and his brother alone.

They passed a sign: _15 miles_ _to next truck stop_. Miriam, Goo's mom's, phone rang, filling the car with 'R-E-S-P-E-C-T'. She looked at it. "It's Mac, honey." She smiled and handed the phone to Goo.

"Hello?" Goo smiled and looked to the car ahead of her, where, through the grey rain, Mac was looking at her through the back window. He smiled.

"Hey, Goo, tell your parents that we're going to stop at the truck stop in 15 miles." She did as the 10 year old told her. When she had, she continued talking to her friend. "Mom says I can get back in your car then."

Goo smiled. "Finally, she's been holding you hostage for, what, 10 hours? I mean, come on, the least she could do is make it less excruciating for the rest of us, I mean, 10 hours? Come on! "

"An hour and a half, Goo," Mac laughed. Goo could always make him laugh. It seemed to her that all he did when she talked was laugh. "And I'll see you again in like, 5 minutes! But I got to get off the phone, Terrance needs it for something."

"'Kay, see you in 5!"

"See ya!" Mac hung up, and sat down.

"Goo hung up a little slower. She didn't want to stop talking to him. She felt as though that would be the last time she would call him anything, but she didn't know why. She knew that the stop was less than 12 miles away now, and she would be talking to him again in 5 minutes, but she couldn't shake the feeling.

A minute passed in silence, which was a record for Goo, who never sat in silence for anything. She even talked in her sleep. But now, she couldn't think of anything to say. She looked up at the station wagon in front of them, now almost invisible through the downpour. The temperature was dropping too. She knew by the adult's sighs that they would probably end up staying in a hotel, which to Mac and Goo would be just as fun.

She could just barely see the heads of Mac and his blob imaginary friend Bloo. Goo to this day didn't know how Mac had convinced his mom to let him bring Bloo, but Goo was happy that he had come. It wouldn't be nearly as cool without Bloo.

As she looked at her friends, something became very wrong. She saw their very countenances changing as the car started to swerve. Time seemed to slow down for Goo as she watched the mauve Station Wagon's back wheels swinging to the left, as the front of the car was suddenly pointed at her parent's silver Volvo. Goo felt her body thrown forwards as her dad slammed on the brakes to avoid a collision. She saw straight into the eyes of Mac's mom and Terrance, who were sitting in the front seat, fear written all over their faces, before the car's front end was thrown into the other lane.

Goo saw Mac sit up slowly. He seemed relived that the car had stopped moving. The oncoming traffic had been plentiful all day, but now that it was 8 o'clock in the evening, it seemed the road was deserted, save one unfortunate log truck that happened to be right there. The driver, now 10 feet away, slammed on the brakes as to not hit the tiny in comparison Station Wagon. But his efforts were to no avail. Mac's body was the first thing, besides the car door, it plowed through. Screams filled the night air as did the crushing metal, squealing brakes, and the twisting fiber glass. Goo closed her eyes.

_Mac didn't die! He's alive! He's okay! Mac is okay! He'll be alright! Better than right! Righter than rain! MAC IS OKAY!_

Goo tried and tried to convince herself of this although, she'd seen what'd happened. She opened her eyes. The Volvo was now at the side of the road, and her parents were rushing out of the vehicle and rushing over to the wreck.

Goo got out much slower. She stood in the drizzle, trying to collect her thoughts. _It's just one of those fender-benders you never hear about on the news, because everyone got out okay!_ She desperately wished that was so. She looked over to the wreck. The mauve Station Wagon was no longer on the road, but in the dense forested area downhill a little ways.

Goo, dazed, walked slowly over to the other side of the street, and to the top of the little hill. Looking down on the crash sight felt somewhat disconnected. As though, maybe, she was dreaming, or watching a television report, or dreaming…

She started down the slope. The horrible stench of fuel and burnt rubber filled her nostrils, making her recoil, and feel a part of the scene for the first time. Other smells started mixing with it, like the clean smell of rain, and redwood, along with the musty smell of old seat stuffing. Then a smell, almost unidentifiable. It smelt familiar, yet oddly distant, as though it should never be smelt. A smell few people witness, a smell doctors know: the smell of blood.

Goo wandered over to a little object lying in a puddle. As she looked down at it, the thing took shape. A shoe. A small shoe. Obviously not Terrance's or Mae's, Mac's mom. Bloo didn't wear shoes. She nudged it a little. It had a purple rainbow on it where Mac had let Goo draw.

Goo ran. Not back to the car, but in the opposite direction. She bolted into the woods, away from the wreck, away from reality, away from the crushing knowledge that her life had changed forever. Somewhere she could be alone with her thoughts: somewhere where Mac was still alive.

Goo looked again down upon the wreck. She'd seen them pull 4 people out of the wreckage so far, one of which, the smallest, they pulled a white sheet over. Everything was now wet and soggy, which was good in that the fire had been put out quickly. A ways away her parents stood, comforting an excruciatingly depressed blob that had to be Bloo. She could hear his screams and sobs, and even from this distance she knew his pain.

The only difference between this scene and the scene from across the ravine was that now she wasn't alone in her sorrows. Right after they took Mac's body away in an ambulance, a boy had appeared at Goo's shoulder. With brown, messy hair, black eyes, a red shirt with white under-shirtsleeves, khaki pants, and black and white shoes, he was the exact replica of her recently dead friend. Goo's imagination had brought Mac back to life in a sense. He wasn't a carbon copy, per say, but he had many of the same memories that Mac had had, and he had the same personality, voice, looks, and just about everything else. For now, she'd let him believe that he was Mac.

Goo took him by the hand and lead him back into the woods and away from the carnage. They would hitchhike home. It wasn't that far, and nothing that happened to her next would hurt as much as the burden that she was already carrying: the fact that her best friend was now dead, and worse, that she was desperate and selfish enough to make an imaginary friend out of him…


	2. Home Again, Home Again

Chapter 2: Home again, home again…

The carbon copy Mac had fallen asleep on the hitchhiked ride home from the accident. When they finally got home, the nice woman, who had picked them up, helped carry him into the house and put him on the couch before leaving. Making up a story that she would believe had been actually pretty easy, as the lady seemed quite gullible…

Goo sat down next to him. She felt miserable, and only wanted to fall asleep. She cried for a long time, her head eventually ending up on the imaginary friend's shoulder. She though that she would never stop, until the thing she had created stirred.

"Goo, wha…" it, no, he had woken up.

Goo didn't say anything. She didn't think that she could speak. Depression filled her mind, and getting away from that depression was almost impossible.

"Goo?" he repeated. "Why are you crying?"

Again, Goo was reluctant to speak, but she finally managed… "B…because…because of you…because Mac…I…"

"You're crying because of me? Did I do something?" The hurt sounded in his voice, mixed with fear. Fear that he'd done something wrong, and fear that someone important to them was hurt, or even dead.

"No, not you…_**Mac**_…the accident…"

"You're crying about the accident? But, Goo, I wasn't even hurt in that! I came out without a scratch on me! Are you saying…?"

Goo didn't want to talk about it anymore. "Mac," she flinched as she used the name for someone other than her friend, "I'm just shaken up about it, that's all. I'm not looking forwards to when my parents get back, because they'll be all emotional."

"Oh," the imaginary friend looked saddened. "Do you want to go lay down? I'll sleep under your bed…"

"That sounds great." Goo thought that that would be a perfect place for him to sleep. The real Mac had slept there often enough when they had secret sleepovers. There was a sleeping bag there all ready for him, and everything.

Best to let him think he was still Mac until she was up to telling him otherwise. The truth…

Lying on her bed, Goo could hear everything that went on in the house, so when a car pulled up in the driveway, she was the first to know. She snuck quietly out of the room as to not wake her 'mistake' as she, in her thoughts, began to think of him. She quietly went downstairs and out the side door to greet whoever was coming.

Her parent's silver Volvo greeted her when she stepped out into the cool, pre-dawn air. Her mother, a dark skinned woman like Goo herself, burst out of the car before it had come to a complete stop.

"GOO! There you are, honey! Oh, I've been _sooo_ worried! How did you get home, a-are you okay, what happened to your forehead?" Goo, obviously, had inherited her fast talking tendencies from her mother, along with her beautifully dark skin. Goo touched her forehead. There was a long gash there from a tree she's run into. "Did it happen during the crash, or…oh, honey…I'm just glad you're safe!"

Her father, a liter skinned man, with red hair, came up behind them slowly and hugged both of them at once. "I'm fine, mom. We hitchhiked home, and…" she didn't get to finish because right then her mother became angry.

"HITCHHIKED? You did WHAT? Honey, you are only 10 years old! What if something happened to you? And…"

Her father, mellower, picked up on something that his wife had missed. "_We_ walked home? Goo, who is this _we_ we're talking about? Did you come home with someone, like a, oh, say, MAN?"

"Not exactly dad…" Goo said this tentatively, because she was about to cry, and she knew that when she cried that she would talk faster than ever. (Hold on to your hats, folks! She's talking really fast now!)

"After the crash and after I saw Mac had died, I imagined another imaginary friend, only this one looks and sounds and acts and thinks he's Mac and now I don't know what to do because he's up in my room and I cant tell him that he's not Mac and hurt his feelings 'cuz he wont understand that he isn't Mac, and I'll have to tell him that I was selfish and horrible enough to not let Mac rest in peace and he'll feel that he has to live up to Mac's memory, and fill Mac's empty shoes, and make everyone feel that Mac is the same old Mac that ever was and I DON'T THINK HE CAN LIVE UP TO THAT ONCE HE KNOWS THAT HE'S NOT MAC!!!" (Whew!) Goo gasped for breath because she had said all this in one breath.

By this time, she was balling. Her father bent down to comfort her although he hadn't understood a thing that she'd said. Her mom, however, was a professional speed talker, and _had_ understood her daughter's ramblings.

"Oh, honey! Oh, honey! Shhh…" She hugged Goo, and tried, however unsuccessfully, to stop her crying. "Honey, oh, sweetie, it's not your fault!"

They migrated slowly inside where Goo finally settled down enough to talk at an unusually slow pace for her. "What am I supposed to do about the imaginary Mac? What are we going to do?" She sat there fretting 'till Miriam spoke.

"Goo, don't worry! We'll figure this out in the morning. Feeling too horrible to walk, she had her father, Merrick, carry her up to her bed where she promptly fell asleep.

"GET UP, GET UP, GET UP, GET UP!!" Someone was bouncing on Goo's head. "Come on, Goo, get up! 'The Grave Tales of Bobby and Millie' is on!"

"Mac?" Goo said waking up. "Mac is that you?" _Was it just a dream?_ She hoped it was, but then the pain in her neck and over her right eye suggested otherwise.

_He really doesn't know that he's not Mac!_ Goo knew that he wouldn't, obviously, but it was still weird for her, knowing that this perfect replica was not Mac.

"Get UP! Let's get moving!" The imaginary Mac grabbed her blankets and tore them off her. He grabbed her hand and dragged her, still in her rainbow clad nightgown, downstairs to the family room.

They passed Miriam on the way, and Mac called out, "Hi, Mrs. Mimi!" Mac had always called her that: Mrs. Mimi. He didn't like calling someone he was on such good terms with by their last name, but didn't quite feel comfortable to call her by just her first name. So he had compromised, calling her something the whole family thought to be quite flattering. The look on Miriam's face was a mixture of shock and confusion. Thankfully the copy of Mac didn't notice. As Goo looked back, she saw the confusion fade into comprehension, but the shock didn't fade.

The two of them, friend and girl, watched Saturday morning cartoons until both of Goo's parents had left for work. The imaginary Mac seemed content to just sit next to Goo, eat chips, and watch TV 'till his eyes fell out, until about 12:30 in the afternoon.

The imaginary Mac jumped up. "Hey, let's go to Foster's! I bet Bloo won't believe any of our stories about the car crash!"

"Umm…" Goo said. She was almost panicking. _If he goes to Foster's, then they'll know my big mistake, and feel obligated to take him in and…_

"What, are you not feeling well from last night?"

"Y-yeah! That's it! I don't feel very well, 'cuz, see, my neck got hurt wile we were slamming on the breaks, and…"

"Say no more!" Imaginary Mac made a dismissive gesture. "We'll stay here all day, just Mac 'n' Goo!"

"Uh, yeah, just Mac and Goo…yep..."

At that moment, Goo felt totally miserable.


	3. Telling you

Chapter 3:

After an hour of soap operas, the imaginary Mac fell asleep. Goo hadn't been paying attention to anything, until he'd started snoring. She looked up. The original Mac had done this before. Goo knew that she had 2 hours before he would wake up. She began formulating a plan. She'd go to Foster's, someone had to tell them that Mac was dead, and maybe, just maybe, she could enlist Frankie's help in what to do the imaginary one.

Goo stood up quickly, but not so as to wake the imaginary friend. _What if I'm not back in time? What if he wakes up early? What if... _

She stopped that thinking as soon as she could. She'd write him a note, explaining that she went to a doctor's appointment, for her neck, maybe, and if he asked, she'd tell him that her neck was fine...

Yeah, that was it! She ran off to get the paper to write the note.

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends was in sight. Goo slowed from a run to a slow walk, suddenly so tired she almost sat down right there on the grass to cry. She didn't want to be the bearer of bad news, not of _this_ sort, anyway.

She already knew the reactions of all her friends. Coco, the bird brain, would probably take offensive, going crazy and suggesting all sorts of alternatives in her crazy incomprehensible way. Bloo, she already knew he knew, but Miriam had said something to the effect that he was staying in Mac's room until the initial shock wore off. Eduardo, obviously, would cry his eyes out. Wilt...Goo didn't want to think about it. She knew that she'd be experiencing it any second now.

She was approaching the front door, now. The last thing she wanted to do right now was to open the front door and tell everyone about Mac. She felt completely lost. Getting up her courage was tough, and seemed to take forever, but she finally opened the front door.

Everything inside, unlike the rest of her world, was exactly as it had been 24 hours ago. No one crying, no one particularly sad, everyone seemed actually pretty happy. She felt like an unwelcome chill come to freeze everyone's happiness. Walking in like nothing was the matter, was an amazing feat and she'd no idea how she had accomplished it.

A tall white rabbit with a monocle hopped up to her.

"Ah, Miss Goo, back from your excursion so soon? Ah, well, yes, what can I do for you?"

"Mr. Herriman," Goo said tentatively, "could you do me a favor?"

"Why yes, Miss Goo, what can I do you for?"

"Could you get Madame Foster and Frankie in an office, so we can talk? I need to talk to all three of you about something." Something in Goo's face must have ticked off Mr. Herriman that this was important, because the rabbit put up no objections.

"Why, yes, right this way..." he lead Goo into his office and sat her down. He picked up an intercom receiver and dialed "all call". "Madame Foster, Miss Francis, please report to my office immediately!"

The rabbit and girl sat in silence in each other's company while they waited for the two women to arrive. Mr. Herriman gave Goo a quizzical look once or twice, but she only said: "I want to wait to tell you so everyone's on the same page."

"Right-o! That sound's perfectly in order." He sat back in his chair for a moment.

The office door burst open and a tall red-head stumbled in. "For the last time, I DIDN'T DO IT, RABBIT!" She folded her arms across her Power-Puff spangled chest. She looked more pissed than she usually did talking to 'the rabbit'. Huffily, Frankie Foster came over and sat in the chair next to Goo. "Oh, hey, Goo! Shouldn't you be on a trip with Mac, or something?"

"She's hear to talk to us about an important issue, probably concerning that matter." Saved by Mr. Herriman, thank goodness!

"You mean she hasn't told you?" Frankie asked him.

"Certainly not, she wishes to talk to you, me, and the Madame."

Goo looked down at her yellow cowgirl boots. She didn't want to meet anyone's eye right then. They were all so cheerful and happy, even when they were attacking each other. She sighed as she heard the door open.

"I DIDN'T DO IT!!" A small old lady burst through arms, holing a cane, raised above her head.

"Yes she did!" Frankie stood up, cutting in. "She totally did it! I mean, come on, who's the only one we know, besides Bloo, who writes their own name on the wall? It was GRANDMA!"

"Pipe down, girl! She's trying to frame me, and in my old age, too!"

"Now, quiet down, the both of you. Neither of you are being accused of anything! We are here to be informed of something by Miss Goo!"

"Oh, yeah..." Frankie sat down again, and Madame Foster came over and sat in a winged arm chair.

"Oh, hello, dearie! And how might you be?" A total transformation, Madame Foster was now using her sweet, happy alias.

Goo didn't look up. Frankie, finally tipped off that something was wrong, asked: "What's the matter, Goo? Where are Mac and Bloo? I thought you went on a trip with them."

"That's what I've come to tell you." Goo sniffed, and whipped her nose with her sleeve. "We were going on a trip together. We were having fun before..."

"Before what, dearie?"

"Yeah, where's Mac and Bloo." Frankie was alarmed now. She was practically an older sister to all the friends at Foster's, but she was the closest thing to family Mac had, his mother working all the time, and his brother, Terrance...well, being Terrance.

Goo sighed. She felt tears pricking at her eyes. "Mac's mom lost control of the car...and..." She couldn't continue. The tears were no longer pricking. They were streaming down her face in a pitiful manor.

Frankie reached over and hugged her sobbing form. Madame Foster sat there stunned and Mr. Herriman took off his hat. They sat there like that for quite some time while Goo sobbed. Finally, Goo was able to finish the story.

"Their car was thrown into the other lane, where a log truck hit Mac head on..." She sniffed. "He...didn't make it. I'm the worst friend EVER!!" She'd started to say what was really on her mind, but with these last words, Goo dissolved into tears again, and couldn't finish.

"Shhh...shhh...It's not your fault they crashed! Oh..." Frankie lifted Goo onto her lap, and being at a loss for anything else to say, she looked to Mr. Herriman for help.

Mr. Harriman just sat there, his furry face unemotional. "Master Mac…dead…" His eyes drifted to a blank, clouded gaze. He, of all people, was the last person to be showing his sad feeling.

Frankie, seeing she wasn't going to get anywhere with him, decided to look at her grandmother. "No indeed, dearie! It is anatomically impossible for it to be your fault, dearie!"

"Not that!!" Goo sobbed. "It's…just…that…" She looked at the clock and tried to look worried. She'd only left the house 45 minutes ago, but she didn't want to tell all of them at once what had happened. "I…got to go." She slipped off Frankie's lap and headed towards the door quickly.

"Wait!" Frankie didn't know what had made her cry out. She looked around. "Uh…uh…do you…do you need a ride home?"

Goo turned around and half smiled. "Okay…"

As Goo entered the house, she tried to be quiet. Mac was still asleep on the couch, and the TV still going when she walked into the living room. She turned off the TV, and tore up the note. She wanted to be alone, but she knew that Imaginary Mac would be awake any time now.

She and Frankie had talked in the car for quite a while. She'd wanted to know the whole story before telling the friends, but Goo had put her off on that. She wanted to be there when that happened. But she did tell Frankie everything. Everything excluding her instant Mac…

Goo didn't like lying. Her parents had always taught against it, so when she had to lie to someone, like now, it was especially hard for her. She wished that she hadn't but she didn't think that she could. She really hoped at that moment that her parents were telling the truth in that everything would be alright.

Someone knocked on her door. "Come in, whoever you are!" She tried to sound chippy, but was unsure of how it was working.

It was Imaginary Mac. "Hey, I'm going to call my mom to pick me up, okay?"

Those words made Goo want to panic. "NO!!" She knew she said it too quickly and panicky.

"What?" Mac looked alarmed. "Why can't I call home yet?"

"Umm…" she looked around for a reason. "Umm…your mom and brother aren't home from the hospital, yeah, that's it!"

"Oh, do you think that when your mom gets home she can take me home?"

"Uh…Mac…no. She cant take you home…you don't exactly have a home."

"What do you mean, Goo, I totally have a home!"

Goo started crying, again. She'd been doing a lot of that lately.

"Oh, are you still crying about the crash? I told you, I wasn't even hurt when that happened. I came out without a scratch on me!" Imaginary Mac was exasperated now. He hated seeing girls cry.

"No…I only imagined you that way…" Goo said, shaking her head. "I…I'm sorry."

"Goo, what are you talking about? Sorry about what?" The nervous look on his face indicated that she'd caught him off guard.

This was the last thing Goo wanted to be doing right now, but she had finally got the courage to start it, and now she would have to finish it. "I was wishing I could wake up an d find out it was all just a dream…that maybe Mac might have survived the crash…that he was right here with me…I'm so selfish…that nothing could ever hurt him again…and then…and then…then you where here…and now I don't know what to do…" As she spoke, she heard her voice getting softer and softer.

"Y-you…you imagined me?" Imaginary Mac was confused. "B…but how? Why…how can that be?" He started backing away.

"I don't know…I didn't even mean to…" Goo looked down at her cowgirl boots as if she'd find comfort there. "I didn't mean to hurt you…"

"But I feel like myself. How can I be imaginary?" He asked. "I even have memories from before last night! I remember you and Terrance and Bloo, and everyone Else at Foster's…e-even my last birthday…" he was looking around as if looking for something in his previous life to hold onto.

"Is there anything before that?" Goo asked, curious and sad

"I…I…I don't…I'm not…" He was devastated at the realization that he had limited memories. "I remember you…everything about you…"

"I think you only remember what I remember about you. You don't remember anything I didn't know about, because…" She had looked up at him for this last sentence, but the hurt in his eyes made her turn away again.

"…Because I'm imaginary." He finished. "I'm not the real Mac…why I didn't know before…" He looked at her suddenly with such intensity that Goo couldn't look away. "How can I live like this?" The question wasn't accusing, it was more matter-of-fact. "I can't go to Foster's…anyone who looks at me will see his face…I'll be a constant reminder of their friend…" He was already trying to separate himself from the situation. "I'll always know I'm just a cheep imitation…" They looked away from each other then.

"Then stay here…" Goo started formulating a solution then. "I-I promise I'll keep you as long as I live!"

"I'll never be able to take his place…" He was starting to feel self-pitying.

"I don't want you to…that's not what I'm asking! Just stay…I don't want you to disappear."

"How can I stay here knowing what it'll do to you?" _Still noble,_ Goo thought. Imaginary Mac wasn't through. "Seeing me will just remind you of Mac, and I cant be him, no matter how much we look alike."

Goo sighed. "Then don't be him. Be the friend who came to help me when I needed it most." A slight smile tore at the corners of her mouth.

"How can I ever be anything but a replacement? I don't even have a name of my own!"

"I'll give you one, but, just stay, please? I need you here."

"I…no one at Foster's can see me if I stay her. Knowing about me would only make things worse for them. Promise me you'll never tell them." He was pleading now.

"Promise…" Goo choked up again.

"Then I'll stay as long as you need me to be here."


	4. Adopting Marrin

Disclaimer: I _still_ don't own Foster's Home…cries in despair…but I now _do_ own the Morra-Myfa Ice Cream parlor they're going to… (Stupid name, I know), and I own Evelyn and the van kid. sigh oh, well! More great things to come anyway…

A/N: I'll probably be switching P.O.V.'s a lot in this one, so, heads up! Also…don't forget to R&R!

Chapter 4: Adopting Marrin

2 years later

The imaginary Mac crept down the stairs. He hated the house he was staying at. A _foster_ home._ The irony, _he thought. Anyway, no matter what the plan was, he wasn't going to stay there anymore. He'd packed his few possessions, dressed in his usual black clothes, and was now heading for freedom.

_I'll probably end up back at Goo's house, thus, ending up, once again, HERE!!_ He hated this thought almost as much as he hated this house, these people, and this plan. _How long will this thing take? It's already been a year since we started it, what's taking it so long?_

He sighed, and looked at the clock: 2:45. He thought of what Evelyn might say if she caught him. Probably: "It's too late for a 12 year old to be out of bed, sneaking around, let alone going outside!" The thought of her word's made him nauseous. She had a horrifyingly high pitched voice that could scour grease off of any pan, and a countenance that made the most delinquent's run in fear. _Oh, if she only knew…_ he thought, _she'd say it was even worse for a _two_ year old…_

But the thought of spending one more day with her was incentive enough for him to move quicker. He decided to take the less noisy back door, whose path went through the kitchen. He knew that she'd be furious if he stole food, but what he was doing would make her furious anyway. He grabbed a box of granola bars, a package of gram crackers, and a bag of M&M's, and slipped out the back door.

_Crazy old bat!_ He thought darkly; although, he was in higher spirits already now he was clear of her starched house, and insane presence.

The imaginary boy glided off into the night as if he weren't limited by the laws of physics. He seemed merely a leaf on the wind, or a bat gliding silently on the night air. He felt alive for the first time since he had come to live with the insane, yet oddly young, Evelyn. She fostered 5 children at the moment, all of which were too high and mighty for an 'emo' kid, such as himself. He was gladly rid of them all.

The whole world seemed asleep, as he dodged through parked cars, lawn ornaments, and back yards. He'd not seen a single light for block, and was finally relaxing enough to slow down a bit, when he rounded a corner and was instantly blinded by two headlights, not 5 feet from his own body.

Memories, not entirely his own, surfaced out of nowhere. _Screeching breaks, crushing metal, fiber glass…_He braced himself for impact. He felt the van hit him, and he felt his body flung into the air, and he felt the crushing force of a white van bearing down upon him.

There was no pain. This was the first lucent thought to cross his mind: _no pain!_ This was an utter shock. He was now 10 feet away from where he started, and now he examined his body.

"Wow…" He studied his hands in the headlights. "That was awesome…kinda…"

"Oh, my…are you okay? Do you need an ambulance? Are you hurt…" the young voice came out of the darkness. _Probably the driver…_

"No, actually, I'm completely fine." He couldn't hide the wonder in his voice. "…perfectly fine…"

"What were you doing, playing out in the street? I could have mowed you over good, ya know! That's probably what I should do, for you givin' me such a fright, doncha know!" The threat was hollow, considering the teenager couldn't keep the relief from his voice.

"Sorry, I won't do it again!" He said, picking himself up off the asphalt.

"Yeah, you'd better not, jeez!" The teen said, getting back into the white van and driving away.

"What _did_ you do, Goo?" He wondered aloud to himself, as he slipped off into the night.

2 _more_ years later

A boy with dark brown hair, black eyes, and a lanky body sat in a winged arm chair in the office of the judge. A dark skinned, 14 year old girl wearing a black band t-shirt, blue jeans with a red plaid minny-skirt over them, and knee-high combat boots, sat in the chair next to him. The boy was dressed pretty similarly, also in a band t-shirt and knee-high combat boots, but the combat boots had been painted red in a few places, and he had black jeans.

_If I was an actual human child… _he thought,_ and hadn't died, I would be 14 as of today..._ The thought startled him. He hadn't ever actually thought about what life would be like if Mac, who he was modeled after, hadn't died. He supposed nothing that had happened to him in the last four years would have happened. He would probably be with his abusive brother, and neglectful mother still, which, considering that he would be able to see everyone at Foster's, wouldn't be so bad.

The dark skinned girl, (obviously Goo) looked over at him. "Are you nervous? I'm totally not nervous! I know that you'll be a part of our family, considering our history you know? They'll totally let us officially take you home, and…"

"Goo!" The boy was laughing. She still knew how to make him laugh by talking extremely fast. It was one of her many talents.

A tall man in a black sweeping robe stepped in the room. The two teenagers stood. "Mr. Marrin Jayse Lewis, you are now Mr. Marrin Jayse Lewis Lopez."

"ALRIGHT!!" Mac and Goo screamed together.

"I knew there would be no problem! See, I wasn't nervous at all, but I might have thought you might be nervous, but I wasn't nervous, I was just excited, 'cuz I knew…

"Goo, you were obviously the one who was nervous…"

"Nu-uh! Okay, yes, but you were nervous too…"

"We both were…"

"Yes, yes, but Marrin, would you mind signing this paper?"

"Not at all!" He grabbed an ever constant pen from his pocket.

Imaginary Mac, now Marrin, had been passed off as a 'real boy' a long time ago, after a year hiding in the Lopez's basement. Goo, the amazing mind she was, had accidentally made him exactly like a human, DNA, growing up, and everything. No one, not even medical examiners had seen a difference at all, even though his genus was Friend, and not Human. He had made himself get captured by the police and put up for adoption, after which, Goo's parents, knowing the whole situation, put in an interest form on him, and now, he was officially a part of the family.

2 hours later, after everything was settled and Marrin could come legally back home, and be seen outside of the house without the neighbors thinking something was weird. Goo and Marrin immediately took advantage of this and went out for a walk. This had been the imaginary friend's favorite pass time for the last 2 years. He'd discovered this passion at the foster home he'd lived at for a time.

_Foster home…Foster's Home…_

What was wrong with him? Why did he keep doing this to himself? It probably had something to do with his obsession. Hiding in the bushes across the street from Foster's he knew wouldn't help him move on from anything. He still needed to visit Foster's on a daily basis even though he'd technically never been there. He was still very much a part of the child he never knew. He felt like he knew everyone there, especially Bloo, although, again, they'd never met.

Many a time over the last 4 years, he found himself either being jealous of or living through his creator, Goo. She had continued going to Foster's after the incident, because she didn't know if she could stop. After a while, Goo knew she couldn't stop. Marrin needed to know what was going on with the gang, and if Goo stopped going, then he would become so depressed that he would be unbearable.

So, for the last four years, Goo had gone to Foster's as usual, had hung with the friends as usual, and came home and reported everything back to Marrin. He always felt jealous that she could see the friends and he couldn't, but also knew that he would die if she didn't tell him everything.

"Hey, Marrin," Goo was a good 15 paces ahead of him. "Why do you daydream so much, huh? It's not like you're making imaginary friends, ha, ha, so spill!"

"Wha…" Marrin was confused.

"Never mind, Mar, hey, race ya to Morra-Myfa over on Maple! Ready, set, GO!!" Goo often did things like that: saying some random comment before changing the subject to something more active. Like, say, a race…

"HEY, GOO, STOP!" He knew calling to her was useless. Once she started running, she wouldn't stop for anything until she reached her destination. Marrin started running. By now, she was 35 yards ahead of him, and rounding the corner into a 7/11 parking lot. Soon she was out of sight, forcing Marrin to speed up. The Morra-Myfa Ice Cream parlor was only 5 blocks away, but Marrin wasn't that fast a runner, and always took short cuts. This time, he knew the 7/11 wouldn't be fast enough, so he ran through a Smith's parking lot.

Dodging through cars was more his kind of thing. He never got hurt, and he had very good agility when it came to weaving around. But, inevitably, there was an unexpected factor in his way. An empty Gatorade bottle lay in a spot where Marrin couldn't see it in time. The back of his foot hit the bottle, and he stumbled around a few feet before unexpectedly hitting a young lady next to a black sports car.

"Ow, watch-it!" Marrin couldn't see the lady's face because it was hidden behind two paper sacks. Marrin, who had unexpectedly found himself on his butt, now found, more unexpectedly, sacks of groceries in his lap.

"Uh, sorry…" he didn't look up as he tried to help pick everything back up, but as he reached under the car to retrieve a can of beans that was making it's escape, he saw a flash of green, and a lock of red spiky hair. Something, he realized was trying to click in his brain, but his brain had almost caught up to Goo in the race.

As he dragged himself out again, catching another escaping can on the way, he caught a glimpse of something all too familiar: a purple corduroy skirt. His body didn't get the hint, for some odd reason, although the 'clicking' was now happening faster.

He stood up, groceries filling his arms, and looked at the girl he'd hit. Suddenly, everything in his scenes froze. The one person he just _had_ to run into was the person he hadn't been able to talk to for years: Frankie Foster.

"Thanks, but next time, be more…" Frankie had stood up and saw who had rammed into her. "…Mac…" Marrin looked around quickly

"Uh…no?" He said hopefully, shifting his eyes from side to side. "Sorry…you must… have me…uh…confused with…uh…" He dumped the groceries into the open car door and ran for his life, leaving someone he once, long ago, thought of as a sister staring after him.

_I am such a wimp!_ He thought as he headed full speed towards the tree covered lot-slash-shortcut to the Morra-Myfa.

Goo sat smugly on the curb of Morra-Myfa's Ice Cream parlor. She stood up and asked, "What took you so long? I mean, you usually suck at races, but seriously, did you, like, crawl or something, I mean, I totally annihilated you this time! Seriously, Ma-oh, Marrin, you were crushed to peaces this time. Jeez…" She cut herself off as she took in the look on Marrin's face. "What's wrong? What happened? Did someone die, or did you accidentally crush an old lady as you passed?"

"Worse…because, it's kind of both…" Marrin looked around. "Let's get inside."

As the two teens walked inside, neither of them saw the black sports car, which belonged to Madame Foster, pull up across the street. "Goo…?" The 28 year old inside wondered aloud. "What exactly happened all those years ago?" She pondered at this thought as she pulled away. Frankie made a mental note to ask Goo this next time she was over.

Inside the parlor, Goo and Marrin, sat together eating chocolate sundaes and, in Marrin's case, just plain potato chips. He had indeed inherited Mac's crazed reaction to any processed sugar.

"…And that's when I realized it was Frankie." Marrin was explaining to Goo why he had been so far behind her.

"Aw, that's not so bad! It's not like she recognized you, or anything! If she _had _recognized you, then we'd be in trouble!"

"That's the problem, Goo! I think she _did_ recognize me! When she looked into my face, I dunno, she had this look in her eyes…" he trailed off.

"Marrin, Frankie always give the look when she's angry at herself for yelling at someone. It doesn't mean anything!"

"Goo, I remember that look! That look seemed disappointed. This look, well, it looked sad and shocked and, well, _hopeful_! This wasn't her feeling guilty. I'm pretty sure this is her figuring out what happened. Frankie's not dumb, Goo!" he looked down at the water he was drinking. He suddenly wished that it was soda so he could forget his problems. _It's like alcohol to me!_ He thought suddenly.

"Mac…I mean, Marrin…"

_I can't believe Goo still does that…In public too!_ He made his brain shut up for a moment while he listened.

"…Marrin," Goo continued, "Don't worry about it! She doesn't know! Now, eat you're sugarless food, non sugar eater!" Goo made this joke about a million times a day, but this time, she was covering up her uneasiness. She, unlike her advertised self, was intensely worried. She didn't want anyone not previously involved to know about her mistake. It was something of a secret to her.

They ate in silence for a while, both thinking of plans of action. Goo came to the conclusion that she would go to Foster's like she normally did, and Marrin thought of how to change his appearance as to not have even his own mother recognize him.

This was not the first time something like this had happened. More than once, he'd seen someone he…Mac knew -like Terrance, his teacher, Wilt, more than once, or other friends- and they would sort of recognize him. But in those cases, they person would just pass it off as a coincidence. The look in Frankie's eyes had been too close to comprehension to shake off.

Mac sighed and finished the chips. When Goo finished, they left in a silent bubble of silent-ness.

A/N: he, he silent-ness! .

Goo walked to Foster's like she normally did. When school was in session, she usually only went every other day, but in the summer, like now, she went in nearly every day. She hoped that soon she would be able to bring Marrin along with her, but for now, she was still going by herself. She felt bad that he was never able to come, but she knew that if she wanted to keep her little secret, he'd have to stay away from everyone there.

Little did Goo know, Marrin was standing in the bushes not 20 feet from her. He was crouched in the bushes across the street again.

_How lame can I get?_ The question didn't bother him too much, because he asked himself this every time he came here. He was just so lonely; he needed to see familiar faces, no matter how far they were from each other. At least he was so adapted at crouching there for hours on end, that he never even made a sound anymore. Marrin sighed, and braced himself for an hour or more of just crouching.

Frankie heard the door open. She automatically knew who it was, and hurried down the stairs so she'd be the first one to greet them. She turned the corner onto the main stair, and looked up from the immediate path her feet were taking. A tall, slim, dark skinned girl in a black crew-cut with red sleeves, and blue jeans was standing in the doorway.

"Hey, Goo," Frankie called out. "Nice shirt! What's up?"

"Nuttin' much…what's up with you?" Goo hoped Frankie hadn't seen her shifty eyes.

"Oh, nothing…actually, I saw you with a boy yesterday. New boyfriend, huh?" This was the only way Frankie could think of to get Goo to explain the boy who looked exactly like Mac. Frankie really wanted to know if there was still a remnant of Mac. She missed him constantly, and desperately.

"Um…no, actually…Didn't I tell you guys? We just adopted someone! I thought I had told you…" Goo thought this sounded like a good enough lie, so she went with it. After all, it was pretty much the truth.

"No, you didn't tell us, that's great!" Frankie wasn't totally convinced, but Goo knew when lies were too big to tell, so this must have been the truth.

"Yeah, his name's Marrin, he is the most awesome person I've known since…" She trailed off. Goo didn't have to finish for Frankie to know what she was going to say.

"That's great, Goo! That's totally awesome! How old is he?" Frankie decided she was going to buy her story, until evidence suggested otherwise.

"Marrin's my age, and he's just like me! Only, he's not quite as wild, or crazy, or insane-able!" Frankie loved it when Goo made up words on the spot like that. It reminded her of herself when she was a kid.

"Oh, hey, Goo, how's it going?" An extremely tall, red friend walked into the room, accompanied by a blue one and a weird bird-ish looking one.

"Oh, hi, Wilt, guys, Goo's family just adopted a new kid!" Frankie answered for Goo.

"Really? That's awesome…totally okay!" Said the basketball lover.

"Cocococococo, co coco co!" chipped in Coco.

"Cool, what's he like?" Bloo had settled for Goo as his best friend. Amazingly, Madame Foster and Mr. Herriman had let Bloo stay in the house with out getting adopted. The new deal had started, because, at that time, Bloo was so depressed that he had to be under constant watch, and, also, he refused to go with anyone who wanted him. After a while, everyone just forgot about the deal, and Boo never got adopted out.

"He's sooo awesome! He's, like, totally like me, only he's not as cool, or brave, or silly, or well rounded as I am!" Everyone knew Goo was joking so they didn't say anything.

"Què ida encendido?" A large purple friend walked in from the room of clocks.

"Goo's family just adopted a new kid!" Bloo turned around, proud to be the conveyer or such cool news.

"That is estupendo! What's he like?" Eduardo clapped his hands for joy.

"His name is Marrin," Goo said. "He's always so nice, but he had a devilish side to him sometimes! He comes up with the greatest schemes sometimes!! He's awesome!"

They talked about him for 20 more minutes. Finally, the topic became somewhat rung out of material. Bloo ended the conversation by saying: "You should totally bring him over sometime! He sounds like my kind of guy!"

"Uh…" Goo mumbled, "Yeah…I guess he sort of is…your type…"

Frankie looked at her watch. "Oh, my laws, I've got to get back to work…sorry to hold you guys up…" she headed up the stairs, still not convinced Goo was telling them everything. _Maybe if I catch her alone, I'll ask about it…_


	5. What if

Disclaimer: nope. Still don't own Foster's. I own the Morra-Myfa, Marrin's room, and the whole alleyway thingy…-- OH! And the bush.

Chapter 5

Marrin walked away from the bush. He had been there for actually a few hours. Goo, Wilt, Ed, Coco, and Bloo had come out of the house about a half hour after Goo had gone in. They had played catch, a five minute game of soccer before getting bored, and then for another hour and a half, they played gigantic game of hide and seek with a few other members of the house. He couldn't help feeling hurt and left out as they played, but, this had become quite a normal feeling over the years.

His favorite part about watching them was Bloo. Bloo had never really changed, or if he had, it was marginally. He was still as obnoxious, stubborn, conceded, insufferable, and all around himself as he'd ever been, although, he did have much more of a sensitive side than before Mac had died. Marrin, who still at times thought he was Mac, felt horrible, and wanted his imaginary friend back, although, technically, Bloo had never been his. It was so hard for him to believe that he was never Mac, and that he'd never actually met anyone at Foster's.

He sighed, and cut through an alleyway rarely used by anyone in the daytime, and rarely used by anyone with standards during the night. Graffiti crammed the brick walls on either side of him, while trash and debris and filth covered the walkway. He felt that it was a metaphor for his life, if the refuse was lies and secrets, and if the bricks were Mac's appearances, and the graffiti him covering those up.

As he came out of the ally, he had to shade his eyes. The transition from the gloom now out into the sunlight was staggering. He was now across the street from the Smith's were he'd collided with Frankie yesterday. He decided not to revisit to that place, instead, he walked down the main road for a few blocks before returning to Goo's and his' house.

He walked down to the basement where his bedroom was, and flopped onto the bed. He looked at the walls that he adored so much. The two smaller ones were painted black, and the other two were painted fire-engine red. Goo's mother, now his, had color coordinated the whole room, so all the furniture was either red or black, depending on what wall it happened to rest on.

On one of the black walls, there was a set of red dresser drawers. On the opposite wall was his bed, the frame painted red, and the sheets were also red, but the comforter and blanket were black. The pillows were mostly red, too. The rest of his furniture, i.e. his desk, bookshelf, nightstand, easel, est. were black. The carpet, though, was a regular tan color. As if you could really see the carpet.

His room was so junked up, that you could make out distinct walkways through the mess of clothes, papers, books, and random knick-knacks. Albeit the basement, there was still an enormous window that spanned half of the wall. Starting above normal person's head, it was only two feet tall, and nearly impossible to find a covering for.

Marrin sighed. He thought about what he was going to do about Frankie. She, obviously, would try to figure out why she'd seen someone who looked exactly like Mac, and, of coarse, she was smart enough to figure it out. But, if she did figure it out, it would cause everyone grief. If she caught him, she would insist that, because he was an imaginary friend, that he return to Foster's where, just because of his looks, he would remind everyone there of Mac, and that would bring up unwanted hurt and painful memories that, in Marrin's opinion, should be left buried.

A door slammed two floors above him.

_Goo's back…_

"MARRIN!!! MAR-IN!! WHERE ARE YOU MARRIN?" Distress sounded in Goo's voice as she looked for the imaginary Mac. "MAR, MAR, MAR, MAR, MAR, MAR, MAR…" Goo said his abbreviated name with every stair she went down. "MAR, MAR, MAR, MAR, MAR, MAR, MAR, MAR, MAR!!!!" The slightly panicky tone in her voice finally made Marrin respond.

"What, Goo, I'm right here!"

"Where?"

"In my bedroom, stupid, where do you think I am?" He couldn't keep the annoyed tone out of his voice.

Goo walked in. "That wasn't very nice of you!" she said distractedly.

"What do you need, Goo." He was openly irritated now.

"What? Oh, MAR, MAR, MAR, MAR, MAR…"

"WHAT?" He cut her off.

"I think Frankie KNOWS!!! Well, she _does_ know about you, but not that you're you, you know?"

"No, I don't know…"

"I told the friends we adopted a kid, 'cuz Frankie somehow saw you with me yesterday, and now everyone knows I have a brother, and they expect you to come over, and I don't know what to do, because, if you go, they'll recognize you, and if you don't go, Frankie will get suspicious, and I can't stop going, because then _everyone_ will get suspicious, and I don't want to stop going, and I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!"

Marrin didn't know what to say. She'd pretty much covered all the options he could think of. He sat up, thinking. "Hmmm…that doesn't leave many options…"

"I know; what are we going to do?"

"I'm trying to think of something, shut up, will ya?" something he hadn't received from Mac was that Marrin got touchy every once in a while, and snapped at his friends.

"Well, I could dye my hair again…"

"That'll make Frankie suspicious too."

"Well, what then? And, suggest something feasible, for once, something that has nothing to do with galactic overlords, magical corn, ninjas, exploding monkeys, or edible glass!"

Goo looked hurt. "But that excludes _everything!_" She sat on the bed, arms folded. She looked up about to say something.

Marrin cut her off by saying "…Or delicious weenies!"

She hung her head again. "You take out all the fun!"

"We're not going for fun here, we're trying to figure out what to do about Frankie, remember?"

"Yes, I in fact _do _remember. But we could have a little fun doing it!"

"Not now, Goo, this is serious work we do!" He held out the last syllable, sounding like Invader Zim.

Goo giggled at the quote, but sighed right afterwards, still angry about his attitude.

"Hmm…" He sighed. "Maybe…naw…that won't work…"

"What won't work? Tell me, I wanna know too!"

"Nothing…just…I dunno, that's probably a bad idea."

"What…what would probably be a bad idea? Tell me now!"

He sighed. "You're not going to like it. In fact, you'll probably hate the idea."

"Wha-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-at?!"

"We could tell Frankie the truth…"

"NO!!" Goo, as expected, shot down that idea before Marrin could finish voicing it. "That is absolutely out of the question.

"I knew you were going to shoot that one right out of the water." Marrin said matter-of-factly.

"…Because it's a bad idea!" Goo stood up exasperatedly.

"I told you, but did you listen? No…" Marrin was smiling now.

"Now, back to business; what should we do?"

"Nothing, for now…" Marrin looked at the floor. "Nothing changes. Just make up some excuses for me every time you go there. That'll work for a little while…enough time for us to think of something…" They sighed in unison, then after exchanging a look, burst into laughter simultaneously. The laughter seemed to be uncontrollable, and for the next 15 minutes, they rolled on the floor with such mirth Goo started crying.

Soon thereafter, they heard the door upstairs open and close. "Miriam seems to be home early…" Marrin observed.

"Why can't you call her mom?" Goo asked, frustrated.

"Why do you still call me Mac?" Marrin shot back.

"Touché…" Goo complied. "Let's go say hi."

The two of them, girl and friend, walked out of the emo-decorated room, and up to greet Marrin's assumed mother. She'd brought home KFC for dinner, and they went out to the backyard to eat it by the pool. [A/n: dang it…_I _want a pool! --

Soon, Goo's dad was home, and they were having some "Great Family Fun" like they did every Friday evening.

[A/n: Crap…I don't own KFC either!! Oh, my frikin' gosh!!! Get the frick over it!!

Frankie finally finished that day's duties. No more dinner to make, no more chores to do, and no more responsibilities. This was the sweet half hour she got alone (maybe) before bed. She usually spent it on the computer or reading or chasing after Bloo and his (insert word here) shenanigans. Tonight, she was thinking.

She couldn't help it. Being reminded so forcedly of Mac, someone who was a little brother to her, was strange, and she saw the reminder as either a cruel joke, an unfortunate coincidence, or as a problem bigger than she knew. Either way, the concept scarred her. She wanted to get to the bottom of this. _Oh, if only the friends hadn't walked in just then…maybe I could have gotten some type of an answer from her…_ She shook her head. _No use with 'if only's'. _

She looked around, remembering the worst day of her life: _The Funeral_. She remembered how Bloo had cried: a most terrible, anguished cry. A cry of pure despair. Something she never wanted to hear from him again. The other friends cried too: Eduardo, obviously, cried uproariously, Coco had cried with a series of coco-ing. Mr. Herriman remained silent throughout along with Madame Foster. Wilt cried silently, trying to comfort the other friends through his tears.

The worst, though, had been Goo. She too cried silently, but the look on her face was one of total hopelessness: as if she was left with a secret…

Frankie sat up straight in her office chair. _What if Goo _did_ have a secret? _Frankie tagged that thought in her brain as important. She would have to do some digging and prying. _What if…what if…_


	6. Close Calls

Disclaimer: Yeah…I _still_ don't own Foster's. Yeah, yeah, get over it! I own some things previously mentioned, and I own SHARK!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!! Hear that Shark? I OWN you! Sucker!! But Eme owns me…T.T

Chapter 6:

Marrin followed Goo to Foster's once again, and, accordingly, hid in the bush. He'd actually brought some homework today, because, since it was cooler outside today, there was a chance they wouldn't play outside. He admired Goo. She was never embarrassed about going to, being seen at, or telling people about her going to Foster's. That was something he remembered _never_ being able to do. He sighed. He'd still be embarrassed about being seen there, but for different reasons now.

He looked around: Wilson Way was completely deserted. Clouds covering the sun made the whole place seem so sad and depressing. Marrin decided to settle in and work on some European History homework: the packet that no one could ever finish completely, or find all the answers to.

Completely zoned out, an hour had passed before he became a part of the world again. He heard the sound of a door opening across the street. He looked up in time to see Frankie coming out of the house. Rain was coming down, something Marrin hadn't noticed, along with a light fog, as so much that he couldn't see Frankie too clearly, and he couldn't see the end of the street at all.

Frankie was carrying a huge box of what looked from here to be books. She could hardly lift it. Marrin could hardly keep himself back from helping her with it. _I guess I could put my hood up and..._ He reached for the hood on his black Invader Zim jacket, and started to stand a little. By now, Frankie was behind the bus.

Marrin paused mid way up, seeing Frankie start to stumble. She barely caught herself from falling, and now she was in the middle of the street, reestablishing the box securely in her arms.

She now walked to the side of the bus facing Marrin, opened the door, and put the box inside. A red convertible drove right where she'd been a half a second ago. Inside, Marrin breathed a sigh of relief. Neither of those people knew how close that day had come to becoming a nightmare. Frankie backed out of the bus gazing after the sports car, a look of annoyance on her face. She put her hands on her hips and shook her head before turning away.

Marrin sat down again hard. Relief spread throughout his body. He knew no one could live through another accident like the one 4 years ago. At least, he knew _he_ couldn't.

After a few minutes, Marrin stood up and walked home, not wanting to stay.

[A/n: Dang. For a minute there, I thought this was going a completely different way! But, well, there have been too many car accidents for this fic. Commence reading NOW!! Xp

_Speeders!_ Frankie thought, as she walked back into the house. _One of these days, that Jamez Withazee is going to kill someone!_ Shaking her head again, Frankie stopped to open the front door. Looking behind her to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything, she paused. There was something weird about the bush across the street. It was moving without any wind. She raised one eyebrow, shrugged, and went upstairs to her room.

There, she looked out her window at the bush. A lanky boy in a black hoodie and pants, and bright blue Converses was stepping out of the bush she'd seen moving. It was the boy that'd run into her the other day, and the boy she'd seen with Goo. _What the heck is going on here?!_ She was getting frustrated.

"Miss FRA-NCIS!!" She turned away from the window as Mr. Herriman called her through the intercom. Sighing, she walked out of the room to see what the bunny wanted this time.

As she walked down the stairs, she bumped into Goo. Goo smiled wide at Frankie, but looked a little uncomfortable.

"Hey, Goo, what's up? I thought you were going to bring your new brother by today…" Frankie tried to be innocent while asking the question.

"Uh…um…he, uh…he couldn't make it. That's it…he had to stay after school, and he didn't feel well enough to come…yeah…that's right. He though he was coming down with a cold, and so he didn't want to make anyone here sick, because that would cause a lot of problems and work for you, and…yeah!" Goo seemed _very_ uncomfortable now, and Frankie suspected her of making up the story. She raised her eyebrow.

"Uh-huh…right…so what's _really_ up?" Frankie gave Goo a look. A look that said "_I'll know when you lie, so fess up, kid_".

"Uh…_nothings _up…what makes you say that?" Goo's eyes shifted from side to side.

"I think you're hiding something, Goo…" She was cut off by the screech of the intercom and the voice of Mr. Herriman calling her name in a more urgent and insisting manor. "I'M COMING, I'M COMING!!!" she yelled down the stairs. "Sheesh…anyway, Goo, I need to talk to you about something, so do leave. When I page you, come to my room, okay?"

Goo nodded slowly, and watched as Frankie continued down the stairs. To herself, Frankie thought: _Man, I hope she keeps her promise. We _really_ need to talk._ Unhurriedly, she continued down to the rabbit's office to face whatever chores he had in store for her.

Goo had no intention of keeping her promise. She breathed a sigh of relief. _Thank divinity for Mr. Herriman!_ _I was nearly toast there!_ Although she felt sorry for Frankie that she'd have to be in the same room with him, she was happier with that than the alternative. She wasn't ready to tell anyone. _It's time for my special talent: sick on demand! _Then, suddenly, she remembered the game of hide and seek she was playing with Wilt, Coco, Ed, Bloo, and some of the younger friends.

Wilt was "it" last time she checked. She looked around, not seeing anyone, although she heard just the person she wanted down the stairs half a flight: Wilt. She hurried to the top as quickly as she could and put on her best sick face. Making sure a bathroom was in direct course in case she'd have to throw-up; she let out a wide, convincing moan. Wilts foot steps started up the stairs at the sound. Goo smiled, only inwardly though, as to not break forth wall. She moaned again for good measure, and as she hoped, his pace quickened.

"What's the matter, Goo? Sorry, but you don't look too good." Wilt said when he saw her.

"Uh…I don't _feel_ too good. I think I need to go home." She put her hand to her stomach.

"I can walk you to the door, if that's okay…uh, should I get Frankie to drive you home?"

Goo's thoughts swirled around her head in a panic. That was the _last _thing she wanted done: being alone with Frankie. "Uh, no, you can walk me to the door, but I really don't want to bother Frankie…I can make it home on my own…"

"You sure? 'Cuz, I can walk you home, you know, if you want…" Goo was touched. She knew that Wilt was really worried. She knew all he wanted to do was to help his friend.

"I guess you can walk me home, if you want…" She looked around for an excuse. "But you really don't have too…"

"Oh, that's okay! I don't mind. I just want to make sure my buddy gets home safe and sound!" He placed his hand on her shoulder, and they started walking downstairs again. As they passed an unsuspecting plant a few floors down, Wilt said: "Oh, hey Bloo. Do you mind being "it" while I take Goo home? She doesn't feel too well."

"Aw, man!" Bloo poked his head out of the plant. Why does that hiding spot _never_ work?"

"Bloo…?"

"What…? Oh, yeah, sure! I'll be "it" for a while."

"Thanks, Bloo…I'll be back in a little while."

Wilt and Goo walked off leaving Bloo to do whatever damage he was inevitably going to cause. They didn't speak until they were a block away from Foster's. Wilt's ever constant smile was fading a bit as if he was thinking about something. He looked down at her.

"I'm sorry, but are you feeling any better?"

Goo looked up. "Not really…why?" She was confused.

"You don't look too sick anymore…" He studied her face. She looked back bewildered, making him look repentant. "I dunno, maybe it's just because of the rain…"

"No…you're right, Wilt. I do feel better now that I'm out of there."

"Out of Foster's…? What do you mean, I'm sorry, but don't you love it there?" Wilt looked hurt. Goo franticly searched for a response.

"No, Wilt, it's not like that! Oh, jeez. Um…Yes, Wilt I do love it there, but, I dunno, I just felt awful in there, and I just didn't feel good staying inside." This sounded like a good enough story, so Goo went with it. "Does that make sense at all?"

"Yeah…it does. I bet you were just getting restless, that's all…"

"Thanks Wilt." They were at her house now. Wilt gave her a high-five, wished her good health, and walked slowly back to Foster's.

Looking both ways to see if anyone was watching, Goo darted off in the direction of, not the front door, but the back yard.

Hurdling over the back fence, Goo took care not to land in the hydrangea bushes that her mom had so painstakingly planted earlier that summer. Avoiding them alone took a lot of effort, not to mention fence-hopping the nine foot fence. She walked over to the pool closet, where she took an inflatable raft out, and laid it next to the pool, but under the awning as to be out of the rain.

She laid down, looked out at the rain filled sky. _Peace…_ she though.

When Goo awoke, a head of red hair and pony-tail was staring down at her. Goo jumped, almost falling into the pool.

"Sick, huh…? C'mon, let's go in." Frankie shook her head, and walked towards the back door.

Inside, Frankie sat Goo down and gave her the "mother-that-knows-all" look. Goo couldn't help but cringe.

"So where's your new brother, Goo?" Frankie's whole demeanor changed in an instant, throwing Goo off. "I came over to see him…is this a bad time, or…?"

"Um…" Goo looked around, "I dunno…" where is_ Marrin, anyway?_ She hadn't seen him all day. "I'll go look for him…I haven't seen him since school…" Standing up, she made her way to the staircase down to Marrin's room.

"Wait…don't go…" Frankie sighed, "I wanna know why you're avoiding me, and don't make anything up!"

"Uh…uh…I…" But at that moment her mother walked in, saving her from a response. Goo breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh, uh, hi Miriam!" Frankie stood up from the kitchen table and rushed over to help the woman with the grocery bags she was carrying. "Here, let me help…"

"Well, hi Frankie…ug…aint seen you in awhile… how're you doin'?"

"Um…well…" Frankie dropped the bags on the counter, "good, I suppose…"

"Good, good, and, if you don't mind me asking, what brings ya 'round?"

"Uh…" Frankie looked around, suddenly remembering why she'd come. "Oh, Goo told me you guys had adopted a new son...I though, y'know, I might be able to come see him…"

"Did she now…" Miriam looked around for Goo, spying her trying to make her escape, and gave her a meaningful look that was more of a death glare. "Well, I'm quite sorry you had to come all the way out here. He's not here, and won't be 'till late. He had to visit with his social worker, Ms. Farnsworth, and then he has a dental appointment, followed right up with a counselor appointment. They were just piling appointments on him today." She sighed.

Goo knew all of those appointments didn't exist, but she nodded her head anyway. Her mom was so creative, sometimes. She recalled a time-a time before Mac-when she made imaginary friends like rabbits reproduced. She remembered Frankie always being angry at Miriam because Miriam didn't want to repress Goo's creative genius. The house had always been filled with friends: sometimes you didn't even know what was friend a and what wasn't.

Now Goo wished that her mom _had_ 'suppressed her creative genius'. Maybe then she wouldn't have to keep her enormous secret from the friends, and she wouldn't have to carry the guilt: the pain.

"Frankie and Miriam exchanged a few pleasantries more before Frankie took off in the bus.

When Miriam (or Mira, as Marrin liked to caller) turned away from the door, she gave Goo a withering look, making Goo inadvertently take a step back. "You've got to be kidding me." That's all Mira said: _you've got to be kidding me._ Goo liked it when she said it to someone else, but when the phrase was directed at her it was utterly terrifying.

"Mom, I…I didn't mean to tell her, but she kind of saw us together an…" Miriam cut her off with a raised hand: she didn't want to hear it. Neither did she want to talk about it.

"Goo-goo Gaga…" Miriam sighed: she was angry. "Marrin's downstairs in his room. Could you tell him to come set the table? We'll talk about this when your father gets home."

Goo darted to the door, glad for an excuse to get away from her mother's wrathful aura.

A/n: well this chapter was a big ball of nothing! -- Oh, well…the next chapter gets way better, I promise! Tune in next time for **EXCITEMENTATIONAL THINIES!!!** yay! XP


	7. Be Hyper, Then Run

**Disclaimer**: Yeah, yeah, whatever! I do not own FHFIF, no matter how much I'd like to fantasize I do. I do not get paid for this junk, and (oops. Forgot to add this last chapter) I do not own Invader Zim (he's owned by Jhonen Vasquez) although I will make references to him. I _do _own, however things that have been previously mentioned, AND I think I own this representation of Goo's Mom.

Chapter 7: Be hyper, then run.

Marrin had heard everything that had heard everything that had happened upstairs, from the time Frankie had entered the house, until the time she'd left, even though he'd been 2 floors down. He sometimes could hear things up to 40 ft away. This was good in times like this, but other times, it got to be intolerable. The time had passed though, and now he had normal human hearing again.

A pounding from above announced Goo's decent to his room. Only Goo pounded down the stairs like that. She came bursting into his room a few seconds later.

"Oh, my gosh, Mac! Frankie was here, and she wanted to see you and so she came all the way from Foster's because I ditched her there and she wanted to talk to me and…" All of this was said in about 3 ½ seconds, but she was cut off by Marrin.

"So I heard, Goo, and you did it again." He looked wound up.

"What…? What did I do again, Mac, tell me!"

"You did it again!" he looked angry now. "You keep calling my "Mac". If you'll recall, my name is _**Marrin**_! _You _gave the name to me, recall?" He was exceeding angry and going on to vehemence.

"Calm down, Marrin, I'm sorry I keep slipping up, but…"

"No, Goo," He stood up from his laying position on the bed, "No! You're not sorry! If you were sorry, then you'd stop!" He was shaking now.

Goo took a step back in shock and, well, fear. He was pretty intimidating when he was mad. She cowered up against the wall. "Marrin, I…"

They looked into each other's eyes, and something seemed to change in Marrin. "Oh, phooey…" He looked away. "I'm sorry, Goo, it's just that…well…I dunno…"

A moment passed in silence. After a while Goo heaved a sigh. "Mom wants you to set the table. She's pretty angry, too, so I think you should get up there."

He walked slowly passed her, out of the room, and up the stairs. She lingered in his room for a moment. She liked how his room was decorated. It was her second favorite combination of colors (rainbow being the first) and always loved being in his room. Her room too was professionally decorated by her mother: emo hearts, skulls, and rainbows covered the black and vanilla walls across the hall. It had it had an incredibly low ceiling for it had once been a playroom, but she didn't want to switch rooms now.

She decided to go help her mother with dinner, and left her imaginary friend's room.

Marrin had finished setting the table before his creator emerged from the basement. Mira had turned on the radio to 99.5: Show tunes. She only did this when she was really angry, but as far as Marrin could tell, she seemed a lot calmer. This was proven when, after she greeted Goo and allowed her to help with the sauce; she walked over to the radio and switched it to hard rock: Marrin and Goo's favorite.

Dinner was a very quiet and would not offer any chance to talk about the days dealings. It ended up that Goo and Marrin ate alone. Mira had been called away on a sudden family emergency. Her husband had to work 'til 11:30 that night and Mira said that she probably wouldn't make it home at all until the next day. They had the house to themselves for once, and for once, they didn't care.

Usually, they went to the Morra-Myfa and stocked up on Mt. Dew, candy, and whatever other junk-food they could carry just to get Marrin all hyper and junked up. They would have contests to see who talk faster and/or louder or they could would have contests to see who could say something more random.

Not today, though. Marrin wasn't in the mood, and Goo was still a little scared about his blow-up earlier. An unspoken agreement seemed to pass between them that that wasn't a good idea at the moment.

When dinner was over with, Goo went out to use the rest of the day (now sunny and cool after the rain) to practice for swimming try-outs in two months. Marrin stayed inside to watch TV. Flipping through channels was not as much fun as going out and surprising Goo with a cannonball would have been, but he didn't feel like peeling himself off the couch at the moment. After a few hundred channels later of not finding a single thing on, he went downstairs and put on his black and red swimsuit and his black swim tee.

The adrenalin from the prospect of surprising Goo was kicking in. He always loved surprising her, especially when she screamed because of it. He now stood at the glass door her back was to him, so he flung open the door, dashed across the patio, yelled "CANNONBALL", and jumped in not 3 feet from her.

He came up spluttering. He looked where he'd last seen Goo: she wasn't there. He panicked and spun around.

"Goo…?" His head was spinning along with his body. _Where is she? _As he spun around again, Goo's face was suddenly not two inches from his own. He screamed as she spit a mouthful of water into his face. "Ach…GOO!" He was laughing now. He splashed water right back at her. Soon they were engaged in a full out water fight, with water guns, sponges, and projectiles.

That's how they got the idea to go to the Morra-Myfa like they usually would do when they were home alone for the night. About 7:15 , they were walking out the front door and heading down the street in the direction of down town, and to the Morra-Myfa. They went through the usual ritual of choosing all the candy and junk-food that made them most hyper, and purchasing it with a straight face while saying the most random words they could think of. The contest ended however, when Goo said "hippocampus" and neither of them could breathe for laughing so hard.

A few blocks later, they stopped at a Top Hat video store and rented Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was one they'd never seen before, and they looked forward to the insane humor it would bring to them in their hyperactive state of mind. Both of them knew that they'd be pausing it every couple of minutes so they could catch their breath from laughing.

(A/n: Okay…here we go: Mystery Science Theater 3000 [MTS3K does not belong to me. Neither does Top Hat Video. The last paragraph is basically what me & my friends do on a regular basis [funding allowing and it is awesome [sorry if you get bored with the description. If you want, MST3K is on [which also does not belong to me and you should probably go watch it. Commence reading NOW!!!

Hours later, the two of them were laughing so hard, they hurt all over. Marrin, of course, was so riled up that he was spinning around in an office chair over in the corner, the movie forgotten, and Goo was perfectly content watching him.

Soon bored, and having too much energy just to sit down watching a movie, they ran out of the house and down the street. For twenty minutes all they did was run up and down the street. Finally tiring, they decided to go back into the pool for a night time swim. Being 9:30 , they knew they weren't going to bed anytime soon. They swam together regularly and loved the deep end of the pool. They always became much calmer in the deep end of the pool: calm enough to talk in understandable (somewhat) words and almost human tones. They were still hyper, but nowhere near as bad as they had been the whole night.

"Knock, knock!" Goo never told knock, knock jokes unless she was hyper, or if they were really funny. Marrin hoped this one was funny.

"…Who's there…?" He replied.

"… Norway …"

"… Norway , who…?"

"… Norway will I leave until you open this door!" She burst into a fit of giggles, inhaling water, which after she coughed up, he laughed even more.

_She's drunk again…_he thought jokingly. He rolled his eyes. She'd been telling this one for as long as he (or Mac) had known her.

"Ya get it, ya get it, ya get it, ya get it, ya get it, ya get it, ya get it…? See, Norway's a country over in northern Europe right next to Sweden, and it's got its own sea and everything, but when you say it really fast, it sounds like 'no way' as in 'no way I'm leaving until you open this door, the punch line of the joke, and that's why it's so funny, see, because it's a double meaning kind of a joke, and, hey, you're not laughing! Why aren't you laughing? Well you're laughing now that I point out you're not, but why weren't you laughing at my joke? Hello…hey…Mac! Ma-ac! Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey...!" Goo was definitely hyper.

She was talking twice as fast as she usually did, and Marrin could hardly understand her. Although he'd made out one thing of the meaningless explanation of the joke: Mac. She'd called him 'Mac' again. He didn't know why this bothered him so, but whenever she slipped his immediate reaction was to explode. He tried to suppress it, but it wasn't working too well.

Goo could tell that she didn't think her joke was funny just by how his countenance had changed. "Mac…? What's wrong Mac, did I say something wrong or…"

"My…name…is…not…_Mac_!" Marrin couldn't hold it in. He was coming apart at the seams. He couldn't stand being the image of someone so widely loved. He felt dirty; he felt sick; but most of all, he felt so enraged and inadequate that he wanted to run.

Not back and forth up and down the street like he had, but in a straight line: A straight line into oblivion.

"Oh, whatever, Mar, just get over it! It's practically impossible _not_ to call you Mac because you look so much like him, and you act just like him and...Anyway you should just get over i..." A look at Marrin's face silenced Goo completely. She saw the rage boiling up inside him. "Mar...?"

Marrin was out of the pool in a heartbeat, and was out of the yard before Goo knew what was happening. He couldn't help it. He knew he didn't want to yell at Goo: the hurt in her eyes from when he did that earlier still haunted him, but he couldn't stand how she was treating him. He wanted her to stop. He wanted it to end. He didn't know what to do, so he ran. He was midway down the street before he knew what he was doing, but buy the time he knew, he didn't want the feeling of freedom he was experiencing to end.

He heard a voice from behind him: it was calling to him, but he didn't turn around. He was finally free and not about to slow down. He heard the call again: Goo's voice. This time, he heard the pain and desperation in it. The piteous cry alone was almost enough to stop a meteor, but it didn't stop him, although he slowed down a bit. _This is for the best! She needs to understand this: that this _is_ for the best!_ He kept telling himself that until Goo's voice no longer sounded behind him.


	8. A New Beginning

Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, stop rubbing it in. I don't own FHFIF! (Also, I still own Shark, and Eme still owns me, thus, owning Shark as well...) BTW: this is version #6 (yes, 6. There are five alternatives to this that all sucked, so I hope you're happy!). --

Chapter 8: A New Beginning

Marrin sat down. He'd run several miles now. He was in the side of town no one wanted to be on; the dangerous side. He looked around, noticing his surroundings for the first time. They were grim: for one, he had stopped in the street between the junkyard and an old gun shop no one ever noticed. Both places were run down and looking shabby. The wall behind him was covered in graffiti and refuse. It smelled of urine and rat poison. Disgusted, he stood up and started walking back the way he'd come.

A sudden noise caught his attention. When he realized what the sound was, he cringed: extremeosauruses in combat. He had never understood this act of violence. _It's just like cock-fighting. It should be made illegal!_ He sighed. _Mac hated it too..._ he recalled. Mac's memories were distant and few, considering he only had the ones Goo remembered. He shook his head and walked on deep in thought, the sounds of battle following in his wake.

A few minutes into his walk, he heard a disturbance down a narrow street to his left. It was more of an alleyway than a street, but there were a few entrances into houses, so it was considered a street by the city.

Marrin looked down the lane to see what was happening. Four men had a hold of something; a kid, or maybe a short man. They thrust him against the brick wall of the alley hard. Marrin took a step in their direction. He heard something then that made his stomach flip over: he recognized the voice of that shape! Marrin realized that it really wasn't that small. He remembered that it had been huge to him when he was Mac. The voice had changed considerably, but was still as recognizable as it had been four years before.

This, more than anything else, was probably what set him off. He was on top of the four men before he knew anything had happened. He could hardly see anything; he was so blinded by hate. Punching, kicking, biting the gang members, and protecting the older teen were the only things that crossed his mind.

"Let him go, freaks! He's got nothing on you four!" He hated how people like them and how they fought dirty and picked on weaker individuals.

He never thought about how he was outnumbered, or how he took out one then they would get even meaner and more dangerous. That is, he didn't think of that stuff until it happened.

Two of the three remaining thugs had a grip on his arms, and the other, obviously the leader, stood before him. He couldn't' see the others, but this one smiled.

"That was a stupid move, kid. I haven't seen much stupider. But that's okay…" he said pulling out a switch blade and playing with it. "I don't see you making the same mistake in the near future. Not with _THIS_…" He shoved the knife into Marrin's gut, "In your abdomen."

Marrin was shocked. He hadn't expected this. He'd actually felt the pain of the knife. Tears of pain pricked his eyes as he bent over in shock. He looked down at his stomach, and then back up into the eyes of his attacker. The young man, probably in his 20's, smile grew even wider as he twisted the blade in deeper.

Marrin did something then, that made the thug's confidence wane; he smiled. He grabbed the hand that had attacked him and pulled it with the knife out of his stomach. In four years, Marrin had never received an injury that had broken his skin. Now, he realized, it was probably good, because the blood covering the knife was a deep, beautiful blue. He pushed his assailant backwards, and felt that the other two had let go.

Marrin looked down at the shape on the ground, shocked that the teen still wore the same plaid shirt and mullet. The older boy looked terrified at the turn of events.

"Get out of here, Terrance." Marrin said as he faced the thugs once again.

"Bu…wha…Mac?" Terrance sputtered thru a mouthful of blood.

"No; and I said get out of here, now, GO!" He shouted.

Terrance, terrified, got up and ran, mostly liming, down the alley and to safety. Marrin turned back to face the thugs.

Goo was frantic. Mar had been gone for hours now, and her father, Marco, still wasn't home. She loved her dad, but the one thing she knew was that when he was set to be somewhere at a certain time, he was to be expected hours later. She wished he would hurry though. She was terrified about what Marrin might be doing, or what he might have already done. She didn't know what to do: she felt completely alone.

_What was I thinking; I should never have said those things! What was _he_ thinking, I mean, _was_ he thinking? _ She looked around for answers. _I know he hates this, but what __does__ he think he's doing? He could get hurt, or he might try to hurt himself... _Her mind was wandering into dangerous water, so she quickly pulled it back.

Goo stood up. She couldn't call her mom: Mira would freak. Her dad didn't have a cell phone, and she wouldn't call him at work. Marco worked as an engineer at some nearby military facility, and to call him, you'd have to go through at least 5 security scans, 4 secretaries, and the conversation would be closely monitored. Getting to talk to a real person alone would take 10 minutes, and getting to her dad would take another 20 minutes. It wasn't worth it just to find out he wasn't there. Goo decided to wait.

_Where could Marrin have gone? Where _do _you go when you run away, anyway? I mean, is there some place runaway kids go, kinda like Foster's, only for abscond kids?_ Goo had never exactly pondered these things before, and was finding them quite difficult. She gave up and started jogging around the house, something she only did when she was indecisive about something, or worried.

_Dang him, and his mysterious boy's ways! Why did I ever imagine someone so dumb? _As soon as she thought it, she felt bad. _No, I love him, and I don't want anything to happen to him! _

There was a sudden knock at the door. Goo ran to it, hoping against hope that it was Marrin; no such luck. When she opened the door she was surprised to see…

"Frankie…?" To her disbelief, the woman herself was standing in the doorway.

Marrin stood there panting. The fight had been tremendous. It hadn't taken that long, but he'd sent all four ruffians (the fourth waking coming back to consciousness half way through) fleeing in terror. There fighting skills lacked greatly, probably because their parents had probably paid for their gang's leather jackets and diamond eyebrow rings. Looking down, he saw one of the said rings lying forgotten on the ground.

Marrin examined his person to make sure he was still in one peace. He lifted up his shirt to see the stab wound.

"Odd…" He said. The 'wound' was gone now; just a slight white line where his skin had been punctured. His shirt, on the other hand, had taken oodles of damage what with a foreign object cutting through it and then being saturated by imaginaries blood. He sighed and examined the rest of himself. His swim shorts were also sopping wet, and not from pool water; no, that'd dried off long ago. Also, the substance was only down the front of them, and oddly sticky.

Finding himself okay, he turned around to walk back out of the alley and stopped short. A face was inches away from his. He was utterly startled, and a bit embarrassed. He hadn't heard anyone come up.

The face was one of an older boy. It was covered in pimples and acne scars, and seemed quite oily. The hair, not quite black, had an emo-ish quality to it: long-ish and unkempt. It was probably gelled to look this way. The boy was wearing a tight black shirt, studded belt (not unlike the one Goo usually wore: one line of spikes for each color in the rainbow), tight black jeans, and knee high combat boots not unlike Marrin's own. He suspected the teen shopped at the same Hot Topic.

"That," the kid had a voice too high for someone his age, "That was amazing, kid! I mean, you're not a kid, are you? You're an imaginary friend!" The teen's smile seemed to split his face in two. Marrin was shocked that a teenager this bizarre had figured it out when teams of doctors failed to.

"How'd…what makes you say a thing like that?" Marrin went for the innocent tact. It didn't work. The messy haired boy just laughed.

"Well, for one, only Imaginary Friends bleed blue; and no human's eyes glow red when they fight, obviously!" He giggled and then stuck out his hand. "My name's Zayd. I was wondering, since you _are_ an imaginary friend…and you _are _good at fighting…I dunno, I usually hang out in the junkyard this time of night…would you…" Zayd trailed off.

"Wha…you think I'm an extremeosaurus?" Marrin was in disbelief. "You think I wanna fight for you, is that it? Are you ins…?" Something crossed his mind. _I wasn't hurt at all back there. They even _stabbed _me and I'm still okay. I can't go back home yet, and, well; I can't be hurt, like, at _all_… maybe this kid will give me a place to stay. Maybe I should give this a try._

Marrin looked into Zayd's eyes. "Maybe I should give this a try…" He gave the adolescent a sly look. "Wiw ya feed me and take care of me and wuv me foweva?" He said this in a mock-child's voice and a puppy face. "Essentially, will you give me a place to live?" he restated, cutting the crap.

"Sure; provided you're house-trained." He chortled slyly. Marrin decided to go with this new person and try out this new lifestyle. _I wanted a change of pace; this is quite a change, so I should probably start adjusting. How bad could it be?_

**A/n: Wow. That chapter took a frigin long time! And, as you'll recall, this is version #6! The first one, he teamed up with a trucker, who took him to a safe-house owned by a Japanese family, but I got carried away speaking Japanese in that, and it kinda fell apart. In the second one, the trucker was back, but only dropped him off at a gas station. The third started out with Goo and her father using "secret government" technology to find Marrin, but that became really lame/unrealistic really fast. In version #4, Marrin saved Frankie from getting mugged, but that too became unrealistic and lame. (I thought Terrance would be a more likely candidate for a mugging) #5 was very much like this one, only he teamed up with Terrance instead of Zayd, and, in the grand scheme of things, that really wouldn't have worked. So I leave you with this version; a version so picked over, I gave up and just posted it this way…--. Keep reading though, and don't forget to R&R!**

**Special Thanks: This goes out to everyone who's read this, especially the one's who've reviewed. But a **_**Special**_** Special Thanks goes out to Capital-C and Dead Promises. They have helped me (dragged me, more like) through the whole thing, and a lot of the material in this has come from them! THANKS, GUYS!! **


	9. The Two of Us

Disclaimer: And here we are again…I think you all are smart enough to figure out what I do and don't own. If anything specific comes up that might rise confusion, I'll let you know if I own it or not, okay??? Sheesh….-- (And I still own Candice, even if she doesn't know it yet…)

**Chapter 9: The Two of Us**

Goo quickly shut the door. Frankie was the _last_ person she wanted to talk to at that moment. She heard an astonished voice come from outside.

"Goo…? Wha…what's going on? Are you okay? Let me in…we need to talk…Goo…? Goo…?" Frankie was knocking (pounding, more like) on the door again.

Goo pressed her back against the door and slid down it slowly, listening to Frankie put up a fuss.

"Goo, I know you're in there! I can see you right there! Come out and talk, okay? I'm worried…if you're not out by the count of _FIVE_…" She said, switching tactics, "This door will be broken down on top of your head, DO YOU HEAR ME?? ONE…TWO…THREE…FOUR…"

Goo stood up, knowing full well that Frankie would disintegrate the door in a couple seconds, if left out there without a response. Goo decided to do the safer (and cheaper) route, and opened the door marginally.

"Hi, Frankie…What's up?" Frankie stopped in mid charge: she evidentially wasn't going to wait to finish the word 'five' to break down the door. It seemed she was desperate.

"What's up with _you_, Goo? You've been avoiding me since…never mind since, look, the point is, you've been avoiding us, and I wanna know why!" Frankie was breathing hard from her distress.

"Frankie…" Goo said slowly.

"No, Goo! You need to tell me what's going on _now_!"

Goo moaned. She really didn't want to talk about this right now. She looked at Frankie for the first time since she entered the house. She saw the concern if her friends eyes and nearly started crying. Suddenly, she wanted to spill everything to her, but didn't know if she could.

"Frankie…uh…uh…do I have to tell you, I mean, your really not going to like it, and I don't mean not dislike it just a little bit, but dislike it, like, a ton, and the stories really long, and excruciating, and…"

"…And you've been holding it in so long you don't know if you can make me understand? I know how you feel." A shadow crossed her face, as if Frankie was remembering a dark secret, or just an unhappy memory. "The thing is you _can_ let it all out. I know; I know what it's like, and the cool part is I'm here for you."

"Marrin's gone." Goo didn't know what made her say it. All she knew was that was the only way to begin.

"Your new brother? Oh, Goo, what happened? Do we need to go look for him?"

Goo told Frankie everything that had happened that night, starting with how Miriam had left and her dad would be working very late. She told of how they'd gone to the Morra-Myfa and gotten extremely hyper. Now she was up to the part on how she'd offended him. (Lazy writing, I know).

"…And I kept telling him that he looked so much like Mac, and that he should stop getting offended by that fact, and he got all defensive and angry, and I understand his point of view, but he really overreacted, and then he jumped out of the pool and ran off, and I couldn't catch up with him, and he wouldn't come back, and now I don't know where he is, and I'm so afraid of what he's doing, or what he might have done that I just can't stand it anymore!" She was talking really fast, like her normal self, and of course forgot to breathe.

"Oh, Goo…what are we going to do with you." It was more of an affectionate statement than anything else. "I get the gist. Common, we're going to go look for Marrin." She started for the door.

"Serious…?" Goo asked.

"Yes, of course I'm serious, now let's move!"

The two of them hurried out to the Foster's bus together, hopped in, peeled out of the driveway, and sped on down the street.

Marrin looked around. It was a dank place this kid, Zayd, had brought him to. It was just an open basement of an abandoned fitness center, although it did show signs of inhabitance. A molded old sofa and armchair stood in the far corner (like, the 'other side of an industrial building' kind of far, not the 'across the house' kind of far). Along with the couches, there was a small TV and a mini-fridge.

"So, you like…?" Zayd walked in behind Marrin. "It's not much, but it'll do until I find somewhere better…"

"It's fine." Marrin only said this because he knew that that would shut him up, not because it was a 'fine' place.

"Well, then, check it out, dude. Don't just stand there." Marrin walked the remarkable distance between him and the 'living' area. He checked the TV; it seemed to be operational. He looked at the sofa, not exactly wanting to expose himself to it just yet, and went to the mini-fridge and opened it. There was only one food item in there that he could see. He picked one of the packages up.

"…Bok-choy?" Marrin said, reading the label.

"Uh…he, he…it-its Chinese cabbage…I'm kinda addicted to it…" Zayd said looking sheepish. Rolling his eyes, Marrin put the bag back in the mini fridge, and stood up.

"Is that all you have?"

"Uh…" Zayd said. "Pretty much…there is some soda in the back, and carrots, probably by the soda…" he smiled shamefacedly again. "Sorry, I should have been more prepared. The guys who are usually here eat out the fridge completely, except for the bok-choy. I'll bring you something tomorrow…"

"Okay…I guess…" Marrin said slowly.

"I don't want to get my Sis upset with me again…I'll be back tomorrow after school, okay?" Zayd stood up from where he'd been sitting with Marrin watching the TV for the past hour.

"That sounds fine, just bring food, okay?" Marrin said, jokingly. He thought of another agreement between a human and an imaginary friend he'd once had had; it too entailed meeting after school. Zayd gave another tentative smile as he left the dank room.

Marrin was glad he was finally gone. He wanted some time to himself. _Extremeosaurus fighting…that is so wrong! _He knew that Mac wouldn't approve of it, and he himself didn't quite know if he liked the idea. _I'm not Mac, so why should I care what he would think? This should be good. _Somehow, he thought that if he did this, it might further separate himself from Mac. _I don't wanna be Mac, so if I want to prove that I'm not him, then I have to do this…_ His thoughts went mostly like that for the rest of the night, him trying to justify his actions to himself, before he realized what he was actually doing.

"Hey, who am I trying to prove this is right to? Ugh, I'm such an idiot! Why do I talk to myself like this?"He sighed.

"Maybe because you know it's wrong…" a voice said from nearby.

Marrin yelped and jumped up from the couch. "Who said that? Come out, or I'll…I'll…"

"No, you won't, Marrin. I know us better than that." Marrin located the voice. A small figure stood leaning on a pillar twenty feet away.

"Wha…? What do you mean…ugh…who are you…wha-what do you mean by you know _us_ better than that…?" Marrin was breathing hard now. He knew he didn't want the answer to any of those questions.

The figure looked up at him, stepping away from the pillar and into more light. Marrin felt his stomach drop to his knees. It was someone he hadn't seen in four years. He felt his jaw drop open, but didn't have any will power to close it.

"You look shocked, Marrin, any reason why?" The boy smiled his sweet, knowing smile.

Marrin was utterly speechless.

"Ah, you don't say…" Mac said. That's okay; I know what you're thinking. 'How can he be here? He died four years ago' and yada, yada. It's okay."

"Why are you here?"

"You're lost, Mar. You need to find out who you are, and now you're resorting to drastic measures to do that."

"You're dead, Mac, what do you know? You were 10 when you died; _10_! How would you know what I need even if you were still alive?" Marrin was getting hostile.

Mac looked at his feet. "I wouldn't have known what we need when I was 10, but we've done a lot of growing since then. And even if you don't know what we need, have you ever considered that I _might_?" Mac smiled up at Marrin again.

Marrin was getting irritated again, beyond his control. He put his hand on his head, and ran his fingers through his hair. "How would you know? And stop referring to you and me as one being! I am _not_ you!"

"Mar…"

"No, Mac, you're dead! _Dead! _D-E-A-D, got that? I'm not dead, that's why we aren't the same person, get it?" A silence followed that was so dense, that it seemed loud. The sheer intensity of it pressed on their ears.

"Don't get in the extremeosaurus fighting, Mar. I don't like it, and I know you don't either. It's just another form of gambling, only this type inflicts bodily harm and maybe even death." Mac prompted the conversation on, but Marrin couldn't handle it anymore, and thought the exchange should be over.

"SHUT UP!!" He snapped. Mac looked hurt, and turned away. He started walking to the East wall.

"I get it. You're not ready to talk. I'll see you around, 'kay, Mar?" His body started fading out as he walked.

"Bu…wait, Mac…" Marrin called out, but it was too late. The little brown haired boy was gone. He sat down angrily on the couch, and leaned his head on his hand. He was surprised to find tears stinging his face.

_What was _that_ supposed to do for me? Was it supposed to make me feel better? Well, it kind of failed! Crud; what am I supposed to do now?_ Thoughts of doubt and anger swirled around in his head until he fell asleep on the couch.

Goo and Frankie had been driving around for a good fifteen minutes before any of them spoke.

"So," Frankie finally said, breaking the silence, "I have a question for you."

_Aw, crap. _Goo thought knowing exactly what the question would be. She nodded at Frankie, letting her ask the inevitable question.

"You said that you kept calling Marrin Mac…" Frankie faltered.

"Yeah…?" Goo prompted, wanting to get it over with. "Go on…"

"…Well, a few days ago, a boy bumped into me while I was getting groceries, and I mean _bumped_ into me, hard. While we were picking up the groceries, I was cursing at him and getting really mad, until I got a look at his face. His face…Goo, it looked exactly like Mac's." They were at a red light then, so Frankie looked around at Goo, who just gave her a 'go on' look.

"Well, Goo," She said turning around to drive again, "I kinda followed him in the car, and, well, I saw him go into the Morra-Myfa with you." Frankie raised her eyebrows at Goo in the review mirror, wanting some help or input or any verbal response from Goo that she could get. Goo wasn't feeling very complying at the moment, and decided to let Frankie suffer. The red head sighed.

"Goo, is Marrin…uh, well…an…imaginary friend?" Frankie looked frightened, as thought Goo might start yelling at her, or call her crazy, or something. Goo, for some odd reason, wanted to laugh. She hadn't felt this free for forever. _Frankie knows! Everything's going to be okay now, if we find Mar, that is. _

Frankie gave Goo a meaning full look. "Well…?"

"Yes, Frankie; Mar _is_ an imaginary friend."

**A/n: Wow. This chapter was hard. Now, Inhale...Exhale...hmmm...Feel better? Well, too bad! XP Just wait, things will pick up in the next chapter. Don't forget to R&R!!!!! Any questions?** -spaz!!-


	10. Imaginary Blood

**Disclaimer: Wow…chapter 10 already…O.O…Anyhoo, same deal as last chapter! ****Only, this time, I'm beginning to own stuff! I'll talk about it at the end, though...**

Chapter 10: Imaginary Blood

Frankie just stared back at Goo. She'd just asked that question on the offhand. She didn't expect it to be _true_.

"Frankie…!" Goo shouted bringing Frankie back into her senses. She swerved to avoid the oncoming traffic, slammed on her breaks, and pulled over.

When they were safely on the shoulder, Frankie whipped around and starred at Goo again. "You mean to tell me that your _adopted_ brother is really an _imaginary friend_?!" She didn't know what to say. She was absolutely dumbfounded. "What are you talking about, Goo? Stop laughing, this is serious!"

Goo could hardly control herself. She was so happy that it wasn't secret anymore that she couldn't help but laugh out loud. "Sorry, Frankie…he, he…its…he…just that…ha, ha, ha…I'm _so_ relieved!!" She couldn't continue, for she dissolved into another fit of giggles.

All Frankie could do was smile. She love Goo just like she was a sister, but she still wanted to know what had happened. "Goo," she laughed, "c'mon, tell me what happened! I need to know!"

So Goo did. She told the whole story, but by the end, she wasn't laughing anymore. Neither of them was laughing any more. Not knowing what to do, they just sat in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Frankie broke the silence.

"Where to look for a confused imaginary friend…I don't even know where to begin. This is infuriating! Goo, do you have any ideas?"

Goo looked down. "Not really...all I know is that he's angry, and, well, I dunno...The only things I can think of aren't like him...like I said, I don't really know..." She slumped back in her seat. The old seats in the bus were uncomfortable. In this particular one, Goo could feel every single spring and seam in it, but she didn't care. "I wish I knew..." She said this offhand, and mostly to herself. Frankie reached back and patted her on the leg sympathetically.

She knew exactly how it was to not know what was happening to a loved one. She'd felt it many a time with her parents, and, more recently, when Mac had died. She hadn't known then that he died; all she knew was that he and Goo had gotten in an accident, and that there were fatalities. That had been one of the most excruciating nights of her life.

Goo sniffed. Frankie looked up at her face to see goo crying. Frankie knew who those tears were for; Mac and Marrin. Two people so very the same. "Goo, it's okay. We'll find Marrin, even if it takes all week." Giving a weak smile, Frankie twisted around again and started the bus.

For a while down the road, the only sounds were of the road, the bus, and Goo's silent sobs. Frankie felt something wet land on her arm. Looking down, she observed her sleeve. A single drop of moisture was there. Lifting her hand to her face, she was surprised to find tears of her own sliding silently down her face. As discretely as she could, she whipped her eyes with her sleeve and continued onward.

A particularly loud sniff coming from the back made Frankie lift her eyes to the review mirror. Goo was whipping her eyes too. Seeing Frankie looking at her, she tried to put on a brave face and smiled. It was wide and fake, but at least it was a smile. Frankie smiled back, and put her eyes back down to the road.

It was a dark road, forested area on both sides. A black shape suddenly appeared out of nowhere, darting into the road. Frankie panicked and slammed hard on the brakes. "...Holy fudge-monkeys!!" Frankie was horrified she was going to kill whoever that was in front of her tires. She heard grunts of horror and confusion from Goo, who, having no seatbelt was thrown hard into the guard in front of her.

_Thank SpongeBob__ Square Pants__ I had those brakes replaced!_ Frankie thought. The bus _was_ slowing down quickly, but, Frankie saw, it wasn't quickly enough. At 2mph, Foster's bus hit the teen just enough to knock him over. Frankie screamed. She pulled the lever to open the bus door, and zoomed out.

"Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh, oh, My GOSH!! Are you okay? Did I hit you hard? Anything broken?" She was nearing hysteria as she reached down to help the boy up. Pulling him up hard, she spun him around, brushing him off, still babbling away. "I'm _sooo_ sorry, is there anything I can do for yo—ˮ she cut off when she saw his face. "Terrance...?" She stepped back in surprise.

The kid (18 or 19 by his appearance alone) looked up, surprised too, at the sound of his name. "...Yeah...who wants to know...?" He looked closely at Frankie's face. "Hey...you're that one lady that Mac..." His eyes went wide at the mention of the name. "Holy crap; Mac! He's been re-en-reencarte-reen...whatchamacallit as a _demon_!!" Terrance whimpered, and pushed Frankie back. Goo poked her head around the corner of the bus to get a better look.

"He'll get you! Him and his demon eyes will get you if you get in his way! Get as far from here as you can!" and with that, all that could be seen of Terrance was a red-plaid streak running for the opposite side of the street.

Frankie just stared after him. Goo came and stood next to her, brain whirling.

"Uh...demon Mac...?" Frankie was confused. She looked to Goo for support.

"That must be Marrin...He must be just North of here. Let's go!" She ran back around and sat down in the same seat she'd previously been occupying. When she realized that Frankie hadn't budged, she came back out and pulled her back in with her.

Marrin hadn't slept well. His dreams were filled with Mac and Goo and, for the first time in a long while, Bloo. Marrin hadn't dreamed of Bloo for about two years. Not since he'd run away from that foster home. But now he did. He thought of how horrible it was to lose his best friends, and dreamed that he was back at Foster's. Now, it was 10 o'clock in the morning, and Marrin was still lying on his back thinking of Mac's life; _his_ life.

Marrin sat up only when Zayd walked in carrying paper bags of 'stuff'.

Zayd plopped down on the molded couch, just letting the bags fall wherever they pleased. He slumped backwards hard and sighed loudly. "Hey, dude..." he managed, breathily. "What've you been up to?" Zayd looked as if he'd been running, hard, and could hardly lift his head off the couch.

"Not nothing compared to what you've been doing, apparently..." Marrin said taken aback. "I didn't think you were the type to work...what _have_ you been doing, anyway? Jeez, it looks like you just outrun the mafia!"

"Aw, nothing like that, Mar. I just had to escape a rival gang, that's all. Nothing I haven't done two million times already. I'd actually be surprised if I hadn't been ambushed on the way here..." He trailed off, gasping for breath.

"And what, may I ask, is up with the bags?" Marrin said suspiciously.

"I got ya some food and a few other things for fighting with. Oh, yeah...I had to get you a kind of lame costume, 'cause no one would believe that you were imaginary. You're too well made." He nudged one of the brown sacks with a toe. "It's in there...just a cape, hat-mask thingy, and lame shoe covers. Not too out of the ordinary, though..." He looked sheepishly at Marrin, hoping he wouldn't be angry.

"Whatever..." He said, managing to hold back his sarcastic remarks.

"There's some Mt. Dew in one of these..." he said leaning forward to rummage through the bags. "Sorry, it's probably all shaken up...you should probably open it away from the furniture..."

Marrin smiled despite himself. This kid was nuts! He was obviously _trying_ to be normal, but it wasn't working out for him. He probably only had friends who were street smart, but not social bugs themselves. In another life, he had probably been a possum...or a nerd...obviously he'd never experienced popularity. Marrin (and Mac, for that matter) hadn't experienced popularity either, but did possess adequate social skills. All Marrin could think was that this kid was a wannabe emo/punk, but was truly in heart a nerd.

He reached for a sack. It happened to contain peanut butter, bread, bananas, carrots, and a bag of bok-choy. Marrin couldn't help but roll his eyes at that. He reached for another bag. This one contained, not food items, but red cloth. _Shiny_ red cloth. He pulled out the material, and found it to be a cape. Holding it up with two fingers, he raised his eyebrows.

"Its inside-out, dork!" Zayd said looking hurt. He reached out and turned it right. It _did_ look better. At least it wasn't so 'Siegfried & Roy' any more. It now looked pretty 'Dracula', though. The outside was black and the inside was now the shiny red stuff. If he squinted, he could almost convince himself that it looked punk-rock.

Zayd pulled out matching shoe covers and a really lame mask. It looked like it belonged in a masked wrestling rink (which it probably did). Okay, give me your shoe, shirt and pants size. You absolutely can't show up wearing a swim suit, flip-flops and a bloody t-shirt. I'll go get you some stuff to fit your 'look'." Marrin reluctantly gave him the numbers, and Zayd departed, leaving Mar to find a way to entertain himself.

Marrin was pretty docile for the next few hours, however. He pretty much just vegetated on the couch, watching TV shows he'd not seen in years. And, although he scanned the 12 o'clock news pretty thoroughly, his name wasn't mentioned once. No reports had been filed that he was missing, and no stupid pictures were posted. He didn't know if this was a relief or a sign he'd really upset Goo. He started battling with himself to decide whether to go back or not. His 'staying put for as long as he could' plan eventually won out.

At about 3:45, he'd had enough of TV. He decided to explore the place a little bit more. He actually found some old exercise equipment and a punching bag. He worked on the stuff until 5:52 when Zayd finally returned with his purchases.

Zayd had an odd taste, to say the least. He'd bought Marrin red skinny jeans, a black 'My Chemical Romance' shirt, black high-top converse, black and red argyle ankle socks, face paint, and mass amount of hair gel and comb-in hair colour.

"I thought I was extremosaurus fighting, not going to a rock concert!" He said, a little sarcastically.

"Shut up, and suit up, we don't have all night! We have to be there at eight sharp, or they'll start without us. And don't worry!"

"What made you think I was worrying?" Marrin said sarcastically. "I'll just be looking like emo Ronald McDonald with spiked hair."

"Ha, ha, funny! Fine, we won't use the gel, but we have to make you look as inhuman as possible, unless you can do the whole eye thing again. Otherwise, they'll think you're just some regular kid who wants to be a hero, or something!" He gave Marrin a meaningful look. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yeah, duh! Of course I want to!" He made it sound convincing, but he was having second thoughts...

"I knew you would! C'mon, get on the duds!" Zayd threw the pants at Marrin's head.

Goo was utterly exhausted. It was about 4 in the morning, and Frankie had just dropped her off.

Their search hadn't been very successful, although they _had_ found signs of him. Terrance, for one, had proved to be useful, in that he'd pretty much told them where to look.

Frankie and Goo had gone just north of the spot they'd run into Terrance. There, they'd found a small, almost forgotten part of the city that was run down and polluted, not too far from the Junk Yard. In fact, they had actually passed the Junk Yard on their way into that part of town.

"Pull over, Frankie," Goo had said, "this looks like a place Terrance would hang out. Maybe Marrin's here too..."

They'd searched around that part of town for hours. Goo's stomach wrenched at the thought of what they _had_ found.

"Hey Frankie, what's this stuff?" She had called. She had been distracted from her search by a pool of shiny wet stuff down an alleyway. She had crouched down to get a better look. Under closer inspection, she realized that the 'stuff' was sticky in some places, but dry in others. Also, it wasn't just wet; it was an iridescent light blue-ish color.

She remembered looking around for Frankie, because she hadn't responded. She looked over her shoulder and called again. "...Frankie...?" Finally, a red head poked out from around the corner.

"What, did you find something?" She had said hopefully.

"What's this stuff?" Goo asked again, holing out her fingers which had the substance on it.

"What...? Oh, my gosh!" She recoiled back from Goo's fingers. "Where did you get that stuff?"

Goo was confused. "Over here, on the ground...what is it?"

Frankie stepped tentatively forward, and gasped. Goo spun around, hoping to see a sign of her imaginary friend. All she saw was the same pools of blue and, something else.

"Is that a...knife?" Goo was getting more and more befuddled.

"Goo, go back to the bus!" Frankie looked to be in a state of shock.

"Bu—ˮ

"Just go, Goo!" Frankie reached out and pulled Goo up, hard, by the arm.

"Ouch, wha—ˮ

"NOW!" The look on Frankie's face was enough to shut Goo up, and get her going. She trod back in the direction of the bus, still confused and, to be honest, a little scared. _What _was_ that stuff? Why is Frankie so upset by it?_

It had taken a while for Frankie to return to the bus, but when she did, her face was dark and frightened. She started up the bus without a word, and was quiet for a good part of the ride home, when, completely curious, Goo finally asked what the blue liquid had been.

"Goo...I don't know how to tell you this, but I think Marrin is hurt..."

"What makes you say that? That wasn't even the question! The question was about the blue liquid, not if Mar is okay or not! Jeez, Frankie, don't get so off subject!"

"Goo," Frankie managed a weak smile, "you don't understand." The smile faded. "That blue liquid you found is no ordinary liquid. That was Imaginary Friend's blood."Goo just sat there dumbfounded. "How do you know what Imaginary Friend's blood looks like...?" Goo was thrown off guard.

"I work at Foster's, kid; long enough, in fact, that I've seen my share of blood." There was a pause before Frankie went on. "Did you notice the knife, Goo?" She had said gently. "It looks like whatever happened there was foul play; and all the clues point to Marrin being involved..."

Goo shut off the memory. She didn't want to think of Marrin getting hurt. As far as she knew, when she created him, she'd made him invincible. She climbed into her bed without even changing into pajamas. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she was crying. She was entirely exhausted and depressed. She wanted to fall asleep immediately, but she knew with how long the night had been, sleep was a long time coming.

**A/n: Okay, so in this chapter, I was making references (probably subtle ones) ****to Frankie's previous life. This is because of the other fanfic I started production on last week. It's going to be about Frankie's childhood...so that's what I own! (BTW: This chapter would have probably gotten up NEXT week, if it weren't for the fact that I am now SICK! ****T.T it**** sucks, but at least I'm posting it!! FEEL HONORED!!! ****hehehe****, Zim!! XP)**


	11. First Fight

Disclaimer: First of all, from the last chapter, I don't own MCR or Spongebob, obviously. And, heads up…I have ZERO experience writhing fight scenes, so don't expect this to be good! It'll probably suck and you'll come after me with torches. I hope I don't disappoint you, but chances are that the only thing this will be fit for by the time we're done is to pick up dog crap with. So, read on, if you dare. --

Chapter 11: First fight

POW!! WHAM!! An octopus-like extremeosaurus fell to the ground, tentacles everywhere. Marrin was sure glad that wasn't him fighting it. It had been brought down by a huge yellow bus-thing that was upright and had rubber arms. The bus-thing body slammed the octopus hard, and it let out a horrible squeal. He heard the cheers of the crowd and an announcer declaring the winner.

As he followed Zayd along, he gave an involuntary shudder. He couldn't believe the scene. It had gotten worse since the last time he was there, not better. Last time, when it'd actually been Mac, there hadn't been any blood.

"Yo, Zee-dawg!" A voice called from up ahead. A short Mexican kid with a bandana was waving at them. "I thought ya lost yer last champion to that Foster's place in the last raid!"

"Yeah…" Zayd called back, "I did, but that's okay, I picked up another one! He's even better than Toad was. I've seen him in action, it's amazing!"

"I dunno, Zee, he looks awfully like a human to me. You know ya can't use people in extremeosaurus fighting. The Boss'll need proof before ya fight him."

"Vachel, you know I don't roll that way. This is an art, and it's not to be cheated!" Zayd appeared to be a completely different person at the Junk Yard. He wasn't antisocial or shy at all. He appeared almost cool.

"Yeah, dude, but you'll still have to prove that to the Boss." This kid, Vachel, forcibly reminded Marrin of a weasel. It might have been his face, or maybe his stance. Marrin couldn't quite figure him out.

Zayd rolled his eyes and sighed. "Fine…" He said to Vachel. Turning to Marrin, he said, "Mar, you don't mind cutting a finger for Boss, do ya?" He'd turned his back to the weasel kid so that only Marrin could see his face. His voice remained cool, but his face was pleading Marrin to comply.

"Yeah, whatever…" He said offhandedly. However, it wasn't a 'whatever', he was scared. It was hard enough for him to focus on the upcoming fight, let alone having to hurt himself on purpose.

"Great," Zayd said, turning back to Vachel, "Where's Boss, then?"

"Over supervising the guys getting ready; he trusts Justice to supervise the fight, but ya know how paranoid he gets when it comes ta people gettin' ready. He thinks they'll find any grounds to cheat."

Zayd continued down the path for a while before hanging a left at one pile of junk, and coming out in a, for lack of better description, makeshift greenroom. Teens and their extremeosaurus' were everywhere, getting ready for their fights. Zayd was headed towards a tall muscley man, about 21 or 22 years old.

"Yo, Boss," he called, "I'm back!"

The man identified as Boss, glanced up from a half-lion-half-bear thing he was examining. When he saw who it was, he looked down again. "Obviously, Zee; what d'ya want? Did ya get another little minion to fight for ya, or did you want to pay me the $500 you owe me?"

Zayd looked offended. "I have a new fighter. A good one, too. And as I recall, you owe _me_ $200, so in reality, I only owe you $300."

"And yer point is…?"

"My point is you need to inspect my new fighter so you'll have a slight chance of getting any of your money!" Marrin could tell Zayd was getting really pissed off.

"You're good…" He said to the owner of the extremeosaurus he was examining. He looked at Zayd again. "So who's your new fighter, him?" Boss looked like he was about to laugh. "You know humans aren't allowed to fight. If you were gonna pull this, why didn't you just dress yourself up, coward." He busted out into a fit of belly laughs that were cold and mean.

"He is, in fact, an imaginary friend, Boss. And he's an outstanding fighter!"

Boss chuckled. "Prove it; give your boss a blood sample!"

Zayd turned and looked at Marrin tentatively. "Give me your blade," He said back to Boss, who handed the knife over. He handed the knife to Marrin who took it slowly.

Marrin locked eyes with Boss, making a clean slice on the back of his left hand. He didn't flinch or blink. He wanted to show Boss he wasn't afraid of anything. He held his hand up for Boss to see. It was dripping with deep, iridescent blue blood. As all three stared at the cut, it began to heal right before their eyes. In a few seconds, it was gone, leaving only dried, light blue blood in streaks down Marrin's arm.

Boss was impressed. "Welcome back, Zee; and welcome aboard…"

"…Marr." Marrin said firmly.

"Welcome aboard, Marr." The big man pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to Zayd. "That's your entry form. You know what to do from here, Zee. I can't wait to see your match."

Marrin faced the crowd. His name had just been called for a match, and they were walking into the ring. Zayd was whispering incoherent advice in his ear.

"…yeah, they just said it, you _are_ facing Turk…He's a mean one, watch out for his poison tail. I know it doesn't look like it exists, but its sure there, so watch out. He's pretty much a chump, but that tail…woo, it's nasty! You shouldn't have too much trouble…"

Zayd had been talking like that for the last five minutes. Marrin was pretty much ignoring him. He was nervous enough as it was, and Zayd was just throwing him off.

Marrin, instead, was surveying the scene. There was the crowd; a sea of faces, all contorted with the pleasure of another creature's pain. It was offering crude insults and suggestions that were probably anatomically impossible. He hated the crowd with a sudden intensity that he'd never put towards anything else before.

He looked to the other side of the ring. There stood a kid with ripped jeans next to Boss and, bizarrely, a bright purple giant panda.

"_That's_ Turk…?" Marrin asked surprised. "You've _got_ to be kidding me! Who would think of a _purple_ panda, of anything?"

"Shut up, Mar, he's got good ears! If you insult him, that only increases his anger AND his ability to win!"

Marrin did shut up. Nothing would surprise him anymore. He'd seen the most random creatures already, so why not a purple panda. The announcer was saying something indecipherable to Marrin's ears.

"That's you, dude; good luck!" Zayd pushed Marrin farther towards the middle, while the kid with the ripped jeans did the same to the panda.

**A/n: I'm getting butterflies while I'm writing this!! XP**

An 18 year old stepped in between him and the panda to state the rules. "Kay, dudes, I'm Justice, your ref for this evening. Remember, we all want a good fight tonight. That means use any method of fighting you darn well please! Begin!" And with that Justice dived out of the ring.

The panda, Turk, reared up high and roared. He didn't seem so harmless anymore. Marrin took a few steps back despite himself. Turk was about the size of a male polar bear and looked just a fierce now. Marrin wanted to run.

Turk began to come back down to fight, now. Marrin took a few more steps back to avoid being crushed by its incredible legs. When the paws hit, the ground shook tremendously. Marrin stumbled back over his feet. _What's the problem? I'm never _this_ bad at fighting! Yo, dude, get up, already! _He managed to scramble to his feet before Turk took a bite out of him.

_Time to change strategies…_he thought, and then laughed. He didn't even _have_ a strategy, yet.

He saw something flash out of the corner of his eye. He only had time to glance in that direction before something caught him in the chest. He was flung backwards nearly 10 feet. _'…watch out for his poison tail. I know it doesn't look like it exists, but its sure there, so watch out!' _Zayd's words came back to him too late. Marrin groaned. He had a crazy idea.

He suddenly leaped to his feet and charged the panda. The panda opened his mouth to take a bite out of him, but Marrin leaped over its head, landing on its back. He finally got a good look at the tail. It was long, thin, and came to a flat blade point at the end. It swished and dived for him again. It missed by mere inches.

Turk was infuriated. He reared up again, trying to buck the parasite off. Marrin found himself suddenly staring at the ground. He nearly fell off, but managed to tighten his grip some. But when the force of the landing nearly shook him loose, he suddenly felt himself being flung off by the tail.

He must have blacked out for a second, because the very next thing he knew was the restriction of a 400 lb. leg on his back, pinning him to the ground. He heard the awful cheers of the crowd all around him and could feel their hate towards him. He wanted to disappear.

_This is pointless! _He thought. _I'll never be able to win this thing! What am I supposed to do? This thing weighs thousands of pounds! Crud, I'm screwed! _He looked up to the crowd, hoping to find Zayd there; to tell him that he couldn't do it. He didn't find him. Instead he saw another familiar face. The face of a child he knew so very well. The face of someone who trusted him completely. _Fine, I'll do it for you, Mac._

He felt a click inside of him, slithering up his spine, energizing his cells individually as he caught sight of his main objective. Strength he had only felt once before.

He felt, somehow, that he should get to his knees, and then feet. He did so with surprising ease, and suddenly the extremeosaurus that had been on top of him was gone. He looked back, surprised, and saw that he had flung Turk back nearly 15 feet. Knowing what to do, he lunged for the panda again, hitting it between the eyes, and stunning it. Managing to hold onto its tail, he tied the panda's legs together. He heard the sound of a gong. The match was over.

**A/n: -gasps for breath- wow! That took about an hour to write! 'Coarse I was roll playing with my friends too, so…**

The crowd's cheering somehow escalated in volume until it was utterly deafening. He felt people around him, congratulating him on his victory. Deafly, he looked back to the crowd. He saw Mac there, a slight smile on his face, before someone walked in between them, and Mac disappeared.

Zayd was thumping him on the back and cheering. He was obviously pleased with Marrin's display. Boss was congratulating him too, while looking slightly disgruntled, handing money to Vachel. Everything was a blur. He found he was exhausted, but exhilarated. He had been at first glad that he hadn't been killed; now he was proud that he'd taken out a two ton bear. Marrin laughed and raised his arms above him in triumph.

A strange sound rose above the din. A high pitched wailing sound that was unmistakable.

"Run, Marr! Don't get caught!" Zayd screamed before bolting: The cops had arrived. It was another raid.

Marrin laughed before taking off at full speed to get out of there before he was arrested. It was funny, but he felt invincible now. With high spirits he picked up his feet and ran, heading back to Zayd's hideout.

**A/n: Okay, I don't know if this is any good or not, even though i actually EDITED this one (I don't usually do that...XP). Oh, well, so, this is my best shot...I have no idea how good this is, even though Shark edited it for me...(She may or may not have been honest...--...she might have just been being nice...) Oh, well..thanks for reading! XP**

**(P.S. I would advise you not to print this at this point. I am not restricting you, but when i printed it out on my computer, it turned out to be over 42 pages. You can if you want, but you know what...? SAVE A TREE!!!) **


	12. A world of Nightmares

**A/n: Hey, y'all! It's been a LONG while! I actually forgot that I needed to update my fic. SORRY! . Also, production may be getting insanely slow, because, we just had an offer accepted on a house, and we have to move (YET AGAIN) in May. This makes it so I have absolutely NO idea how often I will be able to get back to this and work on it. Oh, well...we'll worry about that when it comes. For now, here's you update!!! XP**

**Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure by this point, you are well able to figure out that if I could actually OWN Foster's, then I would make this into a dark movie, not a fan fiction. So, really, if I DID own Foster's, I would not have to post this on here, and you would not be reading this, and I wouldn't have to keep writing stupid disclaimers. GOT IT???????? X3**

Chapter 12: A World of Nightmares

The awful sounds of extremeosaurus fighting floated over the junkyard fence and into Frankie's head. She desperately wanted to block out the excruciating memories that accompanied those sounds, but she knew it was impossible.

Frankie and Goo had come back to the alley. They desperately needed to find some clues to find Marrin, and the alley was the only place that actually held some promise. Frankie was over by the pool of dried blood, just gazing into it, a worried look on her face. If one was to study her face at this particular moment, they would see the difficult decision she had to make, and was currently debating it over with herself.

"Goo, come here…" Frankie called. Goo, poking her head back from around a corner, did as she was asked.

"…What?"

"Goo," Frankie was reluctant to continue. "Goo, we…we, uh, well, that is to say...we should get home." She could have kicked herself for not saying what was actually on her mind.

"Okay, I guess you're right." As Goo started walking away, Frankie slapped her forehead. She was going to say that maybe they get the police involved, but somehow, adult authority (besides her own) had become something of a taboo. Miriam was still dealing with the 'family crisis', and Merrick was overworking himself to death, so much as to not notice anything. (Convenient, no? .) Frankie kicked a forgotten beanie weenie can in frustration.

Goo had stopped at the end of the street and was looking around. "Do you hear that?"

Frankie paused, and looked around. She did, in fact, hear the sound Goo had mentioned, and smiled half heartedly.

"The police do raids on the junkyard every once in a while." She explained. "They arrest anyone they catch; its part of the movement to make extremeosaurus fighting illegal."

Police cars were arriving out of nowhere, now. A helicopter, even, was even circling around in the sky above them.

"Wow. They're going all out here…" Goo said, taken aback.

"Yeah; they do that. But we really should go…" she started towards the bus, when, out of nowhere, people and imaginary friends alike came pouring out of the junkyard; over fences, through rat holes, some –the stupider ones- were even pouring out the front gate.

"Whoa."

"Yeah, wow…" Frankie, who'd actually participated in some of the raids in previous years, never ceased to be amazed at the mass escape attempts.

They watched as cops grabbed at people left and right. The noise was tremendous; yelling, screeching, roaring, even the occasional mooing could be heard escaping the crowd. The two young women just stood there not wanting to move. The sight was too absurd. Frankie couldn't decide if she wanted to laugh or vomit watching it.

Occasional shapes made their way passed the cops and some people –or extremeosaurus', in some cases—were scampering around Goo and her. Frankie wanted to stop them, but was too afraid to. Knowing from previous experience, anyone of them could have a weapon. She decided to wait to move 'til it was clear.

Goo couldn't decide what to do either. She didn't know why, but she felt she should study closely every face that went by. Maybe they'd find some clue or other. She knew Marrin would never go extremeosaurus fighting, but maybe she'd know when she saw someone that might know where he was…

_Goo; you know that's mighty stupid of you. _She said to herself. _How would you _know_ that they would have some information, and how the __heck__ does you expect to get one of them to stay put for anything right now? Sheesh, you're so dumb!_ She shook her head to get herself off her case.

When she looked back to the mob, she saw a figure heading straight towards them. It wasn't too tall, but oddly shaped.

_No…not THAT oddly... _Goo thought. _ I think it's just wearing a cape... _ She examined the shape a little more carefully. It indeed had a cape, and awkward looking shoes from which skinny, red clad legs jutted.

Somehow, the odd figure was somewhat familiar. She couldn't quite make it out, but, she knew she'd seen it more than once. When it passed under a street light, she was able to recognize him. This shape was _more_ than familiar; it was Marrin. Goo gasped. He had red and blue streaks of paint across his face, and an iridescent hat-looking thingy on his head, but it was still unmistakably Mar.

Marrin zoomed passed without even noticing it was them. Goo was left unable to speak, although she did take a few steps after him and reach her hand out to him. She was left, frozen in time, for a few seconds. Realizing, finally, how incredibly stupid she probably looked with her hand outstretched to no one, she let it fall to her side..

Frankie came up behind her and put her arm around her shoulder. "That was him, wasn't it…?" Goo didn't need to answer the question; Frankie already knew it was him. She just needed something to say to fill the awful silent void that had fallen over the scene.

…OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO…

Marrin and Zayd were on the couch laughing their heads off, safely back at the abandoned fitness center.

"That was_ so-o-o_ awesome! You were incredible!" Zayd had fallen on the floor and was calming down a bit. "I've never, in three years of fighting, seen anyone as splendid as you were tonight!"

Marrin beamed. He wasn't too used to praise, but he was enjoying it. _I could get used to this._

"…See?" Zayd was saying. "Didn't I tell you? Turk was a total chump!"

"You did say something to that effect," Marrin chortled, "but, this might have gotten fudged in translation a little, but I thought _chump_ was supposed to mean easy!"

"Well, he _is_ one of the easiest. That's probably why Justice put you with him first. His trainer believes he's, like, the best fighter ever; poor delusional kid." Zayd picked himself up off the floor.

Marrin's happiness had worn off a bit now. "…You mean they get _harder_?" He said, a little whiny.

"Yeah, of course; but worry, it will get easier after a while."

"Uh-huh; liar."

"Whatever; Sis will be horrifically, insanely, and for lack of better words, appallingly irate if I come home too much later tonight; and I have to get passed the Moss-Hills. I'd better get going."

And just like that, Marrin was left alone to his thoughts. He smiled, remembering the adrenalin of the fight. He sat back on the sofa and laughed a little, sinking deeper and deeper into his thoughts.

"You know, Mar," a small voice sounded from behind him, making him jump and whip around. Mac was leaning up against the same pillar he had been the previous night. "I'm glad you won tonight."

Marrin was confused. "...Seriously?"

"Well, I'm glad you weren't beaten into a massive bloody pulp." The boy smiled.

"Thanks; I'm amazed how well I actually did..." Marrin trailed off, thinking recalling that night, a half smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

"Why did you do it?" He said, changing subjects abruptly.

"Do what, exactly?"

"I heard you. You were trying to find that Zayd kid to tell him you gave up when you saw me; you decided to fight _for_ me. What was _that_ all about? I wasn't in trouble; if you'll recall, I'm pretty much dead. Why did you fight _for _me?"

"You _heard_ me? How did you manage _that_?"

"We're pretty much the same person; I can hear your thoughts."

"Why can't I hear _your_ thoughts, then?" Marrin was a little disappointed.

"I'm dead, remember? Other than that, I don't know why."

Marrin looked down at the floor. Mac walked over and hung on the back of the couch.

"You didn't answer me, Mar. Why would you do something as stupid as to get me 'involved' in fighting?"

Marrin felt defensive; he felt ashamed as he felt the anger creep up his spine. "I don't know why, Mac…You were the only one there I trusted, and I needed a reason to fight back. Is that a good enough answer?"

"Do _you_ think it's a good enough answer?" Mac looked at Marrin, unblinkingly.

"Fine, jeez; you know what? If you're going to get so offended when I 'involve you in fighting', I'll find someone else to fight for next time!" Marrin put his hand to his forehead.

"That wasn't the question." Mac folded his arms.

"Yeah, but that's what you _meant_!" Marrin folded his arms right back at him.

The two glared in silence at each other for a minute. Mac sighed, walked around to the front of the couch, and sat down. "This all could have been avoided if you had just listened to me in the first place.

"Hey, now! I won; it was easy! There is absolutely no reason I shouldn't fight! I'm going to continue fighting, no matter you say! Zayd needs me to fight, and it's given me a purpose for the first time in four years! If you don't want me fighting in your name, I'll fight for Goo; just stop telling me what to do!" Marrin found that he was on his feet; he was breathing hard, and his fists were clenched.

"Fine! Do what you want to! I'll see you later, Marrin; goodbye!" Mac stood up and did the whole 'walk-off-and-fade-out' trick, leaving Marrin desperately holding back tears.

He collapsed into the couch again. "Why can't I do anything right?!" He screamed. He felt moisture glide down his face and whipped at it furiously with his arm. "Whatever…" he pulled his feet up onto the cushion next to him and buried his face in his knees.

…OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO…

"…And he's on his back, folks! This is amazing! I've never seen a fight like this! Look at Marr go!" Marrin didn't know what the announcer was talking about. He was standing in the crowd, not in the rink. He looked around. _How'd I get here?_

Marrin distantly felt himself pushing through to the front of the crowd. His body looked out across the scene, and Marrin felt watched as if it were a television screen. A slight figure with a red and black cape was on the back of a giant purple panda. "What the…?"

He realized he was watching his own fight from earlier. He looked on anxiously; this was nothing like he remembered. It was much more disturbing. Marrin's eyes were glowing a fierce red; he looked angry, but he was smiling a disturbing smile. _I don't look like that, do I? _The thought scared him.

He looked around, trying to pin down the faces in the crowd, but, despite the lamp posted scattered here and there, their faces were masked by clouds of darkness. The only feature that showed on them was the glint of teeth and their horrible grins.

The noise was still as Marrin remembered it; fowl and deafening.

He desperately wanted to find one familiar face to lock onto. He felt so alone in this nightmare world. He looked up the crowd, and not four feet away, saw Mac.

"Oh, thank goodness, Mac! I thought I was trapped alone here, and—Mac?" Mac hadn't moved. He couldn't hear Marrin. Hurt, Marrin reached out a hand to touch Mac's shoulder.

As soon as his hand made contact with Mac, everything changed. The whole crowd turned to look at him with their shadow shrouded faces. He and Mac, who still wasn't looking at Marrin, started glowing. Murmuring rose among the crowd.

A sudden voice rang out above the crowd. "They don't belong here! Get 'em!"

_Whoa, __**what**_ He spun around, looking for an out; he didn't see one that he might be able to use readily. He turned back, looking for any type of support from Mac, but Mac was suddenly gone. Marrin was suddenly aware of how completely alone he was here.

He spun around again, more desperate to find an out now that he was alone. There was, not too far from him, a tiny path working through the mob; he decided to take it. Barging through soul after dark soul, he found himself in the alley where Zayd had first found him. He looked at the ground, where a puddle of blue shiny stuff covered the ground.

_It's just my blood, no need to worry. _But he was wrong. Two figures were walking onto the street, now; Goo and Frankie. They started looking around; he watched as Goo found the blood and referred it back to Frankie. He watched in horror as Frankie panicked and forced Goo back to the bus. He tried calling out to them, but they didn't hear him either. _I guess _they_ have reason to worry…_

Not wanting to see anymore, he turned his back on them, to find that he was now in the elementary school where Mac had gone. Everyone was looking at him and laughing. Looking down, he realized he was only in his underwear. He screamed, and sat up on the couch.

He looked around. He was back at the fitness center, alone, and wearing pants. He sighed. _I hate dreams like that! Will the looney-ness end?_ Sitting back on the couch, he tried to put the nightmare behind him, but he knew it was useless. Finally, rather than putting them off, he shoved them to the depths of his mind and tried desperately to go back to sleep.

**A/n: Yeah…that was pretty freaky, so I thought I would make the mood a little lighter by putting in a dream that everyone has at least once in their life: embarrassment in school. . (I can't say that I've had THAT dream, but I've had dejavue of me embarrassing myself there… . ) oh, well…again, I'm sorry it took so long…but the next chapter will NOT take as long, I decided…I'm going to let packing suffer so I can write this for all of you. YAYAYAY!! XP Keep reading! Thanx. **


	13. The Demise of a Great Diagram

Disclaimer:

**Yeah, I probably owe Shark something... I'm not quite sure what, but I'm pretty sure that I do... --...I'll figure it out eventually...Anyway, thanks for the support on the last chapter. I didn't think it'd get that much...but it did. And now, you may read CHAPTER THIRTEEEEEEEEEEN!!**

Chapter 13: The Demise of a Great Diagram.

Frankie and Goo knew exactly what to do (**Which was good, because I, for one, have no idea where this is going**)! Their whole strategy was planned painstakingly the previous night by Frankie and her amazing diagram-making skills. She'd stayed up all night, creating the perfect plan using toothpaste, oven mitts, Popsicle Stix, and glue. Both Frankie and Goo were heading out the front door when everything went wrong.

"Miss Francis!" A voice sounded behind them right before they'd escaped outside. They froze and guiltily turned to face Mr. Herriman. "What on earth do you think you are doing?! Last night, it seems, you shirked your duties, and I'll be a monkey's uncle if you were to shirk them again tonight! What is more important than your duties to this household?"

Frankie held on tight to the explosion welling up inside of her, but she did manage to send a death-glare his way. "I thought I told you; Goo's brother is missing. We're trying to find him! Any of this ringing a bell, Bugs?" She said, exasperated.

He looked appalled. "Don't be daft, woman! You have already let too many things slip! There is no way I can allow you to neglect your chores two nights in a row!"

"Are you insane, Rabbit??" Frankie was appalled. "You would let someone's safety fall into jeopardy just so a few_ chores_ will get done?! What is wrong with you?" Frankie was fuming, and looked ready to attack.

Desperate to avoid a suicide, Goo put a hand of Frankie's arm. "Its okay, Frankie; calm down. It doesn't matter. Maybe it's for the best we don't go tonight. At least we now know where to find him." She smiled weakly up at her. "Here, I'll help you with the chores; they'll get done faster."

Frankie smiled back at Goo. "Yeah, okay; and then I can go over the diagram with you. We can go tomorrow night, maybe."

"Oh, and Miss Francis," Mr. Herriman broke in.

"What now, Herriman?"

"Master Blooregaurd found a certain diagram you made," he shuddered slightly at the thought.

"What?!"

"Yes, in fact, he did. Now, hallway 16 is a horrific, nightmare-inducing mess."

"HE DID _WHAT_??"

"Now, for all our sakes, Miss Francis, would you please start with that hallway before someone finds the mess and decides to make it bigger?" Mr. Herriman didn't look it at the moment, but both Frankie and Goo could tell, he was sickened by the very idea of it.

Frankie was irate. "If I get my hands on that little--" She was wringing her hands as if she were strangling someone, but cut herself off for good taste. "Yeah, I'll get on it, Mr. H." Weariness cut through her voice.

Goo and Frankie headed up to hallway 16, where—as the Rabbit had said—the 'horrific, nightmare-inducing mess' awaited them. Bloo had really gone to town on Frankie's diagram, _and_ on the hallway. Frankie felt a sudden, violent urge to smash through the wall, grab Bloo by his conceded head, and rub his face all over it until he choked to death. She had to close her eyes, breathe deeply, and wait for the urge to pass.

The problem was, not only was her project scattered all over creation, but other various objects and foods—luckily for them, unidentifiable—were crushed and scattered throughout it. Frankie's stomach churned.

"Buenas tardes, Fran—ay caramba! What happened here?" Eduardo came around the corner and was startled by the mess.

"_Bloo_ is what happened here!" Frankie growled through clenched teeth. "Boy, if I see head or tail of him in the next couple hours or so, he'll wish he was never imagined! Why, I otta--" Again, Frankie cut herself off, judging it was better _not_ to finish the sentence out loud; after all, walls have ears...

"Oh," Eduardo said, "I go tell him. I no want you inflicting too much pain on him." He smiled sweetly.

"Thanks, Ed."

As soon as Ed was gone, Goo turned to Frankie. "What in the world did you use for this?? I mean, seriously! I've used clay and paper, and card board, and glue, and plastic wrap, and mashed potatoes—not the stupid flaky ones, you know, but the real mashed-potato mashed potatoes—and chunky peanut butter," she gasped for breath for she'd been talking really fast again, "and candy dishes, and linen in _my_ school diagrams, but I can't even TELL what you've used in here! It's like ketchup-chilly, and, oh, my gosh, are those socks?"

"...Oven mitts." Frankie admitted defeated.

Goo raised her eyebrow. "Oven mitts? Okay, Frankie, that's a little_ past_ weird! How the heck did you come up with ketchup-chilly and oven mitts? I mean, _seriously_!"

Frankie looked sheepish. "Hey, I was tired! I didn't have anything else, okay? _And_ I didn't expect 'Lord Destroy Zitall' to get hold of it! It was a good plan, too!" She knew her argument was lame, but this was all she could think of to say. "Just help me clean, Goo! C'mon, give me some slack, here!"

...oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo...

Marrin was lined up for four fights that night. He cringed.

_Why did I have to go and do so well with the panda?_

He was standing a few feet away from Zayd, who was currently making bets with Vachel and some of the other 'regulars'. Zayd seemed very calm; he was playing the part of the 'cool kid' again. Marrin couldn't help but smile at his act. He knew the _real_ Zayd; the clumsy, apologetic, in-need-of-self-assurance, happyish Zayd, not this smooth, unemotional, stoical Zayd.

"Marr, get over here!" Zayd suddenly called out. "This kid wants you." Marrin walked over to the small group, a little confused, until he saw the 'kid' Zayd was referring to. He seemed to be a much smaller version of Vachel. He'd been so hard to see at first, because he was standing, sheepishly, behind Vachel, like a kid meeting his hero for the first time.

Zayd knocked Marrin on the shoulder as soon as he was even with him. "You're popular, Marr. Ron, here, wants your autograph." Zayd sniggered and nudged Marrin in the ribs. The kid, Ron, gave Marrin a wide smile which was missing some teeth, and held out a pen and a piece of dirty, dog-eared scratch paper. Surprised, he took the paper and scribbled the first part of his signature. _Someone wants_ my _autograph? What's the delio here? _He couldn't help blushing slightly around the ears.

"Thanks," said an amused Vachel, "You know how l'il cousins can be. He saw you fight last night, and, boy, he hasn't stopped talking about you since." He smiled respectfully at Marrin. Now Marrin was _really_ taken aback. Marrin realized Ron_ was_ a kid meeting his hero. _Seriously, _He thought, _what is the delio?_

"Hey, guys, give Marr some space; seriously. He's gotta get focused for his next fight."

Vachel put his arm around his cousin's shoulder, thanked Marrin again, and walked off towards the 'break room', as Marrin learned it was called.

**A/n: at this point, I realized I haven't worked on this in a few months! I'd better get cracking! xP**

Zayd grabbed Marrin and put him in a headlock and gave him a noogie. Marrin pushed him away, "Hey, leggo of me!"

"Y'gotta get on your game, Marr! You got some big fights tonight!"

Marrin looked down. He didn't want to think about the fighting at all, but he knew they were going to call him to his first match soon.

Sensing Marrin's change in mood, Zayd punched his arm lightly. "Don't worry, dude; you beat Turk with no problems. You're only fighting **Noriai**, Octavian, Selur Natas, and Fred. I know they sound intimidating,"

"All except for Fred," he interjected sarcastically.

"Yeah, well, anyway they only sound intimidating. They've all been defeated by Turk, and you beat him in a snap. It's gonna be a piece of cake!"

"You act like that with yer trainer," a deep voice rang out from behind them, "How do I know yer not gonna act that sissy out on th'ring?" Boss came up between them and put his bulky arms around the two. He sounded drunk.

Marrin pulled away from his arm, but Zayd spoke before Marrin had a chance.

"You saw him last night, Boss. Don't worry your pretty little head about my Marr!"

"Yeah, well," Boss pushed him lightly away, "don't be so confident 'til he's won." With that Boss walked off to tend other business. Marrin walked closer to Zayd so they could converse some more.

"I don't like him much." Marrin said, coldly.

"I know, but he'll like you as long as you don't lose him any money." Zayd picked at a spot on his fingernails.

...oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo...

A big metal hand smashed down not too far from Marrin's face. He was lying in a big puddle of mud, being attacked by the big yellow bus thing he'd seen fighting the octopus yesterday.

"…And Noriai just about had Marr's head there! Oh, I hope the rookie can pull it together…!" Marrin was only hearing bits and snatches of the commentary. He was so into the fight, he could hardly think of anything else.

He was doing badly. _Way_ badly. He knew fighting a Transformers-like thing three or more times his size would be hard, but there was nothing on earth to prepare him for this. He rolled away from the arm and stood up, ready to grab onto it next time it slammed down near him.

He was tired. He'd already fought Selur Natas and Fred, and still had to look forward to Octavian. He was way too low on energy. To be honest, he hadn't fought too well with the previous two fights either. His powers, or whatever, weren't coming to him as easily as they had the night before. He tried to think of something—or someone—to fight for, and it kind of worked, but nowhere near as good as before.

_WHAM!!_ Another blow to the ground inches from him. He leaped for the arm and grabbed on, holding tight while Noriai brought its gigantic arm back up for another blow. It looked back down to aim for the next attack on Marr, but was confused when the other imaginary friend wasn't there. Marrin jumped from the hand onto the monster's head, and covered its eyes with his hands, trying to come up with some type of strategy.

The thing's hands started coming out of nowhere, ramming itself, and narrowly missing Marrin each time. He held on tight. The Noriai was doing more damage to itself than Marrin had been doing the whole fight. _I could just let it keep beating up on itself 'til it's finished, _he thought,_ but there's a good chance…_

"Agh!!" he cried out, as the bus thing's hand narrowly missed his leg.

_There's _too_ good a chance that he'll knock me off first!_ He looked around frantically for something to beat this guy, but another blow knocked him off the robot's head and onto its shoulder. He grabbed on as best he could to a protruding piece of metal that had been scraped slightly looser by Noriai's struggling appendages. It was a good 20 or more foot drop to the ground from here. He needed a plan, and he needed one now!

The extremeosaurus spun around fast, trying to find Marrin. Holding on harder, something red caught his eye, about the middle of Noriai's neck. Marrin squinted to see it better, because it was the only bit of red on the beast. _What in the world...?_

The thing stopped spinning, and Marrin was able to read the white words on the round, red thing: 'Self Destruct'.

"No way!" he said, incredulously. "That's pretty stupid!"

Deciding that the teenager who had made the thing could actually be that stupid, he went for it, thinking all the way that it could be a trap, but going for it anyway. What choice did he have?

As he lunged towards the button, Noriai saw him on his chest, and started barraging him with blows again, this time aiming more accurately. One of the blows hit his leg, and he heard a terrible, stomach churning crunching sound. An immense pain spread up his leg, through his back, and into his arms and head. He screamed.

The pain and force of the hit nearly knocked him off the robot. It was almost enough to knock him out. The only thing that kept him conscious and holding on, was that he knew that he might not recover from a fall like that. He clenched his teeth against the pain, and held on tighter.

He knew that he needed to keep going, so he lunged again for the button, a little more awkwardly this time, as he felt his leg dangle limply at his side, and pain nearly strong enough to knock him unconscious rush up his leg again. He gritted his teeth tighter, and curled his toes. It was unbearable. He managed to reach out his hand, and hit a button; as he looked at it, he realized it wasn't the button he'd been aiming for. It was another, yellow, button that had blended into the Noriai's armor. It was marked 'Upgrade'.

Marrin felt a pit drop in his stomach as a cool female voice say, "Upgrade action activated."

"Aw, crap! You've _seriously_ got to be joshing me!"

He quickly reached out and hit the 'Self Destruct' button again, multiple times in quick succession. He heard the faint, but soothing female voice come from somewhere again and say "Upgrade action overridden. Self Destruct to commence in 15 seconds."

"Oh, crap!" He cried, and started trying to get down the robot as quick as he could. Again, he had the feeling that he probably wouldn't recover from a self destruct like that if caught in it. His leg wasn't cooperating with his sudden need to move quickly. He cursed the extremeosaurus, and started sliding down the front, grabbing anything and everything he could that was protruding from the thing.

"Five seconds" The computerized voice said calmly.

Marrin looked down, and estimated the fall to be about 10 feet now. Guessing it to be as close as he could conceivably get, he took in a huge breath, he let go of the armor plating he'd been holding, and pushed off from Noriai with his good leg. He seemed suspended in time for a split second. He looked up at Noriai's 'face' and saw the countdown going. The red number currently flashed on where the robot's eyes were supposed to be was 4…

His stomach start to feel the effects of gravity first, and, before he knew it, the rest of his body felt it too. He was falling, falling, falling, and finally, time regained it's natural order, and he hit the ground, hard.

3…

He caught a glimpse of his hurt leg; it was horribly mangled and bloody. He knew he wasn't getting very far on it. He tried scrambling backwards, but knew it wasn't going to do much good.

2…

He flipped over onto his knees and started crawling, not going fast enough. He curled up into a ball to protect his head, at least.

1…

If Marrin was still watching, he would have seen the Noriai burst into flames, and, not explode in that sense, but more of implode into a small, toy-like version of itself. However, it did send a shockwave, strong enough to knock over much of the crowd, which seemed to be pleased by the result, seeing as they started cheering more than ever before.

Marrin turned around to see the Noriai in all its miniature splendor. _I can't help but feel that was a little anticlimactic…_

He fell back onto his rear, and took a second to examine the extent of the damage to his leg before the crowd engulfed him. _I hope I don't have to do any running from the police tonight. I don't think I could make it!_

Although he could see signs of it already starting to heal, there was blood pooled all around him; shiny and iridescent. His mind was forced back to that night 3 days ago, when he'd saved Terrance. He remembered the dream where he'd seen Frankie and Goo see his blood in the alley. Had that been a dream? He couldn't tell, but it didn't matter to him anymore, for the crowd had deluged around him, and was now lifting him up on their shoulders (which seemed to be a tradition of theirs for the winners) and was carrying him off the ring. He fell back and let them take him. All he cared about now was not passing out, and not throwing up.

When the crowd finally put him down on the sidelines next to Zayd, he couldn't hardly stand at all, let alone walk. By now, he'd realized it was probably a mistake to look at his leg anymore. The bone had been crushed to gravel in some places, and he was sure he'd broken a few more bones. He knew instinctively that if he was human—or didn't have his miraculous healing abilities—he'd be losing that leg.

"What's up, dude?" Zayd asked, as Marrin leaned on his shoulder to get weight off that leg. "You're not doing so well tonight—jeez, man, you're way pale! You gonna be okay? D'you need anything?"

"If you haven't noticed, Zee, my leg's kinda been crushed to a very fine powder. Some of it's probably still back on the field. I wonder if _that_ might be contributing to my performance issues." Marrin couldn't keep the sarcasm and weariness from his voice.

"No, not that; I mean, you were fighting a lot better last night; what happened?" Zayd started half carrying, half dragging Marrin back towards the 'break room'.

"I dunno, I'm just a little thrown today…" He said. He wasn't going to tell Zee anything about the dreams, or Mac, or anything. _This is between I, myself, and me! _He thought.

"You're not healing too fast" he said, concernedly glancing at Marrin's leg, "d'you want me to take you off the next fight?" Zayd looked really worried by Marr's condition.

Marrin thought about how bad his leg had looked when he'd fallen off Noriai. "Yeah, I can't even walk right now; I think it'd be best for tonight…"

Zayd put Marrin down on a particularly chair-like pile of junk in the 'break room' and left to go watch another fight.

"I've got some good money down on this one, dude; sorry."He said.

"Whatever; go ahead. I'll be fine here in a few minutes." Marrin replied.

And so he sat: alone, and in agony. He watched in silent awe for a few minutes as his bone slowly regrouped into one silvery-white line, and his skin slowly started to close around it. Again, he was sitting in a pool of his own extraordinary blood. He wished the match would get over soon so he and Zayd could get out of there. He'd go alone if he could stand, but he would need lots of help going anywhere.

At one point, when the pain grew too great to look at his leg anymore, he looked up, and across the 'room'. He saw, standing in the opposite corner of the junk-clearing, Mac. Mac was standing with his arms folded, and leaning up against a pile of garbage.

When Mac noticed Marrin was looking at him, he shook his head mutely, and disappeared. Marrin groaned in frustration, and put his head on his good knee.

"Dangit," he whispered. "Dangit, dangit, dangit!" With each time he said it, he hit his head against his knee. He closed his eyes. "I'm sick of this," he whispered to himself. "I'm sorry, Goo; I miss you."

**Disclaimer # 2: HEY! I figured it out! I used some of Shark's material in the last chapter, thus, violating copy write laws, or whatever… Hands 3000 imaginary dollars through the computer screen to Shark But, since I'm adding a disclaimer to this, (stating I don't own Foster's) I wont have to pay 3000 REAL dollars to Craig McCracken. . yay! (Oh, yeah….I don't own Foster's) **

** Noriai** is Japanese for bus.


	14. Hard Decisions

Disclaimer: Well, it's been a while now

**Disclaimer: Well, it's been a while now! (Sorry, I took some time off for moving ((which I have to do pretty soon here again)) and to write some other material. I've got another one going New Beginnings and a few more started one's a song fic, and there's another huge project like this, only following the life of Frankie) So, anyway, you guys know the drill: I do not own Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, or any of it's characters, and so on…Happy Reading! (And pray that I know what I'm doing!)**

Chapter 14: Hard decisions

The chores were FINALLY finished. Both Frankie and Goo were slumped on a couch in the waiting room, the sounds of Madame Foster's collection of clocks filling the air around them, and threatening to drive them to madness.

Usually, Frankie didn't have that many chores after dinner; just dinner dishes, putting the baby imaginary friends to bed (which Wilt sometimes helped with), and, on occasion, cleaning out the industrial size walk-in fridge that Foster's had finally resorted to after the three fridges they had had stopped being enough to hold all the food, and after Frankie had figured out how much money they would save on the electricity bill by switching.

That night, Goo and Frankie had to do all of that, and more—partially because the hall that Bloo had destroyed, and partially because they had to do last night's dinner dishes too.

Goo and Frankie were wiped out. They'd also had to put most of the baby friends to sleep twice, because Bloo thought it would be neat to set off a cherry-bomb in their room. Currently, Bloo was sleeping outside, tied to a tree in the backyard. Currently, no one was claiming him as their friend.

"I hope it starts to rain on him," Frankie said offhandedly to Goo, who, half asleep, had slipped most the way off the couch.

"…Who," Goo inquired, tiredly, "Bloo?"

"Yeah," Frankie said, blissfully.

"Me too;" Goo smiled, "He totally deserves it, too, no matter what he thinks."

"Yeah," The two of them smiled together, too tired to care about anything.

A moment of silence passed between the two of them, before Goo remembered something relevant to life.

"Frankie?"

"Yeah, Goo?"

"What was the plan you had before Bloo destroyed it?" She pulled herself back up onto the couch. She rearranged her rainbow and hear-patterned skirt and tried to tug her yellow socks back up to her knees.

"You know something, Goo?"

"Know what?"

"I don't even remember what the plan was about."

They both giggled half heartedly.

Frankie labored to open an eye and glanced at one of the millions of clocks on the wall.

"It's after 12, Goo. Shouldn't you g'het home?" she was so tired, she was beginning to slur he words.

"Yeah," the girl sighed, "But it doesn't matter too much. Mom's still out of state on family business,"

"So she's staying longer?" Frankie interrupted.

"Yeah," Goo continued, "And dad isn't going to notice what hour I come home at."

"That's good…" Frankie said, practically drifting off to sleep right then.

"I think I'll be walking home, then, seeing as you're too tired to drive." She was trying to use reverse psychology on Frankie; she really wanted a ride.

"Good if'dyeah…" Frankie actually did fall asleep before she even finished her sentence.

Goo sat in silence for a while, not wanting to wake up Frankie, and definitely not wanting to get up and start walking. _This is me getting up and walking home, _she thought sarcastically, _right now…_she didn't move; _nnnnow…now…uh, huh, getting up right this very second._

She gave up trying to fool herself. _Uh, huh. There's no way I'm getting up._

Goo looked around the room for a little bit. She slumped back in the chair, and tried to gather the courage to stand up and start walking.

"So, why aren't you out looking for Marrin?" said a small voice from behind her.

Goo shot up from a slumped position, to a full, upright sit. She twisted around trying to find the voice. It sounded familiar, somehow.

"You didn't answer me; why aren't you looking for Marrin?"

She pinned down the voice to a small figure standing in the shadow of the doorway. It looked like a small boy with a large, squarish head.

"B-because…M-Mr. Herriman wouldn't let us…" She said, not believing what was happening. _Am I asleep? _She tried to stir herself, but she didn't appear to wake up. She looked back to the boy. "Who are you? Do I know you?"

"You do," He said, "But we haven't spoken in a while. Tell me, do you intend on finding Marrin anytime soon?"

His question puzzled Goo. "Well, yeah, I mean, it's my fault that he's gone. And, y'know, he's my friend. He's like a brother to me."

"Yeah, but do you _intend_ on looking for him soon?"

Again puzzled, and a little irritated, she replied, "I already told you yes! Like, why would I say 'yeah' if I didn't mean 'yeah'? Jeez, I mean, really; I told you I'm trying to find him, and you didn't even listen to me!" Goo stopped herself before she went into full-on rant mode.

"You need help?" It wasn't really a question, but more of a statement.

"Yeah, that's why I told Frankie I created him and…" she gasped and threw her hands over her mouth, cutting herself off.

"Do you want _my_ help?" the boy said, seemingly unnoticing her little slip up.

"I guess I wouldn't mind, but…Hey, how do you suppose someone your age could help in a bad situation like this, huh? I mean, you're, like, only a little kid, and this is more big-kid stuff, you know? Adult-ish issues."

"Do you want my help?" The boy repeated.

"…Y-yes…?"

"Okay, then."

Goo blinked. The boy wasn't there anymore. She looked around the room, but didn't see him. She sat back down on the couch, and blinked again. The room seemed to come into sharper focus and seemed to become lighter. _I guess it _must_ have been a dream._ She thought.She wanted to convince herself of this, but she wasn't at all sure.

Spooked, she stood up. _I guess I should get home before I fall asleep again._ She wasn't at all tired anymore—she was too startled to be—but, she decided it was for the best. She wanted to get the strange, yet familiar boy out of her head.

…oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo…

Marrin's leg was almost completely closed up by the time Zayd got him back to the hideout. It looked like one giant blue-ish scab with bad scrapes all around it. It still hurt to put any weight on it, thought.

When they got there, a couple other guys were sitting on the couch watching television. "Well, hey, Zee!" One, the green haired, apparent ring leader, called from the couch, "We were wondering when you were gonna show up!"

"Well, I'm here." Zayd said, breathing heavily from half supporting, half carrying Marrin. "My guy's hurt, though. Anyone a medic here?"

The boys who weren't listening before certainly were now.

"…Uh, well, I gotta go right now, and, uh, wash my socks…y'know, they're really filthy…" one boy looked really uncomfortable, and stood up. Three others nodded, and mumbled something in agreement, all naming various chores they suddenly had to do before the next day. One was actually honest with them.

"I've seen your ideas of medicine, Zee. I aint stickin' around for nothin'!"

Five boys still remained, including the one who'd originally greeted them. Zayd gave a devilish smile to these.

"Are any of you squeamish too? This one's quite a bleeder…" he offered, hoping at least one would take the bate.

Two of the remaining five obligingly stood and walked quickly toward the exit.

He smiled even wider, enjoying this. "You three sure? He was squirting earlier."

One of them, a lanky strawberry blonde, started to stand, looking quite ready to leave, but also looked as if he were chained there by curiosity.

"Okay, then," he started to lower a confused—and almost starting to panic—Marrin to the ground, and asked, "Does anyone have an exacto-knife?"

"Y'know, Zee," the green haired boy who'd first greeted them said, amusedly, "If you want us to leave, you could just ask." He smiled a strange grin. His canine teeth had been sharpened to long, fine points, like a vampire. It seemed almost deadly. "But that wouldn't be nearly as much fun, would it, now?"

Zayd just grinned right back. "Nope; not at all. Would you, then? Leave, I mean."

"C'mon, guys, it's late anyway. We should go." He stood up, and, obviously being the leader of the other two, they stood up at the same time as he.

"Thanks, dude."

"Well, after all," the boy with the vampire teeth smiled viciously, "This is your place. You can ask us to leave any time." He seemed nicer than he looked—and acted.

"Thanks again," Zayd smiled back.

After they left, Zayd helped Marrin over to the couch and plopped him down.

"Sorry about that, Marr," he said a little embarrassedly. "I didn't expect them to be around tonight. They were supposed to be away 'til tomorrow…"

"It's okay; hey, what'd he mean this is your place?"

"I found it. I secured it. I'm the boss of it." The strange teen shrugged.

"Wow," Marrin said.

"Yeah," Zayd smiled a little sheepishly. "SO, anyhoo," He continued, trying to change the subject, "D'you think you'll be okay here tonight? I gotta get going, here. The Moss Hills are on patrol tonight, and I don't wanna get caught; they're kind of after my hide…"

"Go ahead," Marrin said, "I'm good; I'm almost completely healed." He gave Zayd a friendly smile.

"Okay, then; if you're sure?" Zayd wanted to know.

"I'm positive, Zee. You should go,"

"Okay then, Marrin." He stood up from the couch. "See you, then."

"Bye,"

Marrin turned to the TV to see what the guys had been watching. It was some sort of Cop show that was really popular with teens. Personally, he thought it was pretty boring. He turned off the TV and slumped back onto the moldy old sofa and sighed dramatically.

"Bored, are we?" Mac was suddenly standing in front of the TV set, arms folded.

Only a little startled, Marrin replied, "Yeah, pretty much," he sat up straighter in the couch, "I screwed up my leg pretty badly earlier…"

"So I noticed." Mac said dryly.

"So, why are you here? I thought you were going to avoid e, or whatever."

The boy sighed. "I probably was," he admitted, "but then, y'know, you went and pulverized your leg, and so I came to see what happened. I'm also kinda wondering if you got the hint…"

"The hint?" Marrin asked, a little sardonically. He thought he knew what that was.

"The hint, as in that extremeosaurus fighting is stupid and dangerous, and that you should really stop doing it." He was being straight forward; it was a little refreshing.

Marrin didn't say anything. He knew Mac was right.

Mac spoke Marrin's thoughts, "You know I'm right," he said, "so why don't you just admit it?"

Marrin gave in a little, and sighed. "I know I know you're right, and I know I'm wrong, okay? It's just, I dunno," he trailed off.

"You don't know what?" Mac prodded.

"I don't know anything, okay? I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't know why I'm doing it, and I don't have a clue what to do next, okay? I'm a failure at life, apparently, and I don't know anything!" He started beating his head against his knees again.

There was silence in the room for a while, while Marrin banged his head in anguish, and Mac stood, not moving an inch.

After a while, Mac finally sighed. "So what do you think you should do now?" He was standing closer to Mar now, and his voice sounded a lot less scolding.

"I don't know," Marrin said, dejectedly.

"Well, we know one thing for sure," Mac said, brightly.

"And what would that be?" cynicism sounded in Marrin's voice when he spoke.

"What you're doing right now isn't working for you." He grinned.

"Oh, wow! What an accomplishment to figure _that_ out! And, if you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic! Hooray for me." He slumped back onto the couch with great exasperation.

"Well," Mac continued, "we now know that you should try something different; something quite the opposite of your current actions." The big words he was using sounded weird coming from an eight year old, even if it was just a deceased figment of Marrin's imagination.

Marrin inexplicably turned angry. "But what if I don't want to try something different? What if I want to keep doing what I'm doing? What if I want to keep fighting?" He was up and clenched his fists hard. "What if I don't want to go back?" He was fuming now, and he himself couldn't even figure out why.

Mac looked back at Marrin, a little defensively. "You mean 'what if I _can't_ go back'."

"So what if I do mean that?!" He shouted. He realized he was suddenly on his feet, something he couldn't remember doing.

"That's not true, thought, Mar; you _can_ go back!"

"No, I can't! And how would you know? You're dead!"

"Because I know, Mar, I know! I'm practically you, remember? I know you, and I know Goo! She'll take you back in a heartbeat!"

Marrin sat down. There was silence again for a while.

"So, what if I do go back, then, and give up fighting?" Marrin finally said.

Mac came and sat down on the couch next to the disheveled Marrin. "Everything is going to be alright, Mar. You know that?" He flashed an encouraging smile up at the older boy. They sat like that for a while in silence, Mac smiling, and Marrin trying to re-imagine his life.

After a while, Mac faded out into nothing, and just like that, Marrin was left alone to his thoughts. He sat back on the couch and laughed a little, starting to figure out a plan for his life. He didn't anticipate anything happened next.

"That was some fighting ya did tonight." Apparently, he wasn't as alone as he previously thought. Marrin stood up quickly and spun around; he recognized the voice, but only vaguely. The dim light in the room was only strong enough to distance 6 feet away, not enough to illuminate the speaker's face, but he recognized the bulky profile and torn t-shirt.

"Hello, Boss. How was your evening?" This sounded way too formal, and almost a little impertinent.

"My evening was fine." Boss said, tersely. "I made—and lost—some good money. I was very impressed with yer fights, by the way."

"What brings you down here, then; I mean, if you did so good?" Marrin was determined to stand his ground, although he was completely intimidated by this hugely muscled man. Boss' deep voice spoke of danger if crossed, but Marrin didn't know how to handle it. He was just saying the only things that came to mind: the manners that his once-foster-mom, Evelyn, had drilled into him, those two years before.

"I lost a lot of money because of you!" He practically shouted it, he was so angry. Calming down a bit, and switching tactics, he continued. "I was actually wondering how a well mannered extremeosaurus like you got mixed in with Zee." Marrin cringed at the word 'extremeosaurus'. "It doesn't really make sense, really. Zee is obviously didn't create you; I know him, and he's not smart enough. Where'd he get ya?" Boss was sounded accusing, now.

Marrin glared at Boss. "He 'got me' in an alley, not too far from the Junkyard, actually." Hey, it was the truth!

Boss, now more towards the light, raised an eyebrow. "Really? He just found ya in some alley, and assumed you'd be some amazing fighter?"

"No, actually, he found me fighting in an alley, and _knew_ I was an amazing fighter." He was still sore from the 'extremeosaurus' comment. He was sick of being considered a monster.

"Ya seem to be very sure of yourself, for a beginner. Maybe we need to take your confidence down a few notches." He took a step towards Marrin, who instinctively took a step backwards, despite himself. Boss smiled. "Not too confident when ya don't have the crowds cheerin' at'cha!"

Marrin glared at the man, wanting to tell him of his udder loathing for that crowd.

"I'm not meanin' to offend you. I actually came down here to offer you an," he chuckled, "_adequate_ trainer." He checked his watch, "Because, by about now, yours seems to have expired."

It took a moment for the full weight of what Boss had just said to sink into Marrin's consciousness. "What did you do to Zayd?" He was outraged that this vile creature's seeming pleasure with his last statement.

"Oh, nothing, really; not as of yet, anyways. But, if you decide to deny my offer, you can expect something _will_ happen." Boss smiled and snapped his fingers and smiled. Several teenagers—sporting leather jackets with green vine-shaped patterns across the backs, signifying they belonged to the Moss Hill gang—came down the steps, half dragging a pitiful looking person, bound with ropes; an old rag had been stuffed into his mouth. It was Zayd. 

Marrin was horrified by the sight. "Let him go! He didn't do anything!" He could feel himself going into panic-mode, which was something that wasn't supposed to happen.

"What if I don't want to let him go thought? He's leverage." He sounded a little mocking, enough so to make Marrin wonder if he'd somehow heard his conversation with Mac.

He didn't know what to do.

"Now, here's an idea: you don't ant your little friend to get hurt, right? Then I suggest you do everything I tell you. For one, if you start fighting for me, I can offer you actual training, _and_ Zee won't be hurt anymore."

"And if I don't…?" Marrin replied, defiantly.

"Well, Zee will die, and you'll end up fighting for me anyway." He said simply, smiling a big, toothy grin.

Marrin thought for a second. His options seemed pretty grim. Either way he was screwed. Neither way was everyone safe and happy.

_Why don't you want to fight for him? _A little voice asked in the back of his head. _It would save Zee, and it probably wouldn't be too bad…_ He tried to silence the voice.

_No, because, I'm going to give up fighting, and, yes, it would be that bad. Who're you trying to fool?_

"So what's your choice, then?" Boss cut into his internal conversation.

Silence on Marrin's end. He was thinking about his options, which seemed to be severally limited.

"We're waiting…" Boss said, impatiently.

_Which would be the lesser of two evils, then? _He thought. Obviously, it would be willingly fight for Boss, which wasn't at all an appealing option. Was there another option? He didn't think so.

"Three…" Boss was saying,

"Two…"

What to do?

"…One. Time's up. I suppose you chose the option where you come _un_willingly." He smiled an evil, vile little grin, which sent chills of fear and regret shooting up Marrin's body.

The teens holding onto Zayd all let go, except the two grasping his arms. One, merely a boy, punched him hard in the stomach, and others kicked at his legs. Some other boys from the gang appeared out of the shadows, and started advancing towards Marrin.

Panic was overwhelming Mar now. He was now desperately searching his mind for a way to stop this. _What can I do?_ He thought. _I feel so helpless!_

He tried to dodge as the gangsters made grabs for him, but couldn't; there were too many. They each grabbed one of his appendages, restraining him.

Marrin felt completely defeated. He had no idea what to do. He searched his vision for Zayd; Zayd, who he'd let down. Zayd who would probably die now, because Marrin was just too slow to make up his mind to save him. If his legs were free, he'd kick himself.

He caught sight of Zayd, bent over after a swift kick to the gut. He was looking down, so he couldn't see what Marrin could, and what Marrin was seeing wasn't pretty. One, the man that had threatened Terrence all those days ago, had pulled out his trademark switchblade. Marrin could see where this was going: the same way Terrance's fight with them would have gone if Marrin hadn't shown up.

And that's when Marrin found the other option he was looking for.

He felt it when his blood start to boil again, that sensation that was familiar to him after fighting those times; only this time, the feeling was stronger than ever. It was overpowering. He knew his eyes were glowing now, and he felt a breeze start to kick up; an odd occurrence for the inside of a building.

_I guess I'm fighting for you, then, Zee._ He smiled at the thought.

With barely a twitch of his hand, it seemed, he threw the burly teens off him, and halfway across the room. Angrily, he ran, hunched down, across the room and at the boy with the knife, which was ready to stab Zayd. He was sick of these people picking on people who were weaker than them. They were such cowards. They just _had_ to travel in groups, making sure anyone they happened upon was weaker than them, just to have the advantage. Well, he wasn't going to put up with their antics any longer. He was going to do something now!

He collided with the other boy, sending the switchblade flying off into a far-off corner, and the boy in the opposite direction. He looked back to where Zayd was; the group around him was starting to disperse, and the people holding him had let go. One of the only girls there was still holding onto Zayd's arm, but loosely now. They all looked unsure of what to do.

"Don't just stand there lookin' like dogs," Boss' angry voice cried, "Leave the kid and get the extremeosaurus!"

Some of the group seemed to get their courage back, as they started advancing on Marrin, but others hung back, probably fearing for their lives. They seemed to know they were no match for Marrin.

Marrin stood up and gave an evil grin to the group, some of whom faltered a bit, but mostly kept coming. The girl who'd had Zayd's arm seemed to be leading them now, and the others seemed happy to follow her, like they'd done it before. She was reflecting his evil grin right back at him. Marrin couldn't help but think she looked like a fox, or maybe a wild cat. She had a pointed face with a long nose. Wild red hair that stuck out in all directions seemed to make her look crazy. At any other time, he might think she was attractive, in an odd sort of way.

"Surround and in!" She commanded the group in general. The whole gang jumped into action at her order, increasing the idea in Marrin's mind that she was the leader.

The other teens ran around Marrin, forming a wide circle. When he was fully closed in by the other youths, they started running in at him, closing him in a tighter circle. He waited 'til they were almost all close enough to grab him before he made his move. He brought hands close into his body, in fists about waist height, and threw his right leg up about eye level. He pirouetted hard with his left leg, kicking them all in the face, and knocking them back. He smiled, feeling like he was in some sort of cheesy kung-fu movie.

He easily fought off the persons who'd recovered quickly from his kung-fu-like kick, and ran towards Zayd, who was now slowly picking himself off the floor. Boss tried to step in between him and Zayd, but he didn't have a chance. Marrin blew right through him, sending him flying, with a yell of pure rage, ten feet away into a pillar.

Marrin continued towards Zayd, and dragged him to his feet. With super-human like speed, he half carried, half dragged Zee towards the exit, up the stairs, and out into the cool night air, leaving a path of human destruction in their wake.

"You okay?" Marrin called over the sound of the wind rushing past them.

"I-I th-think so…" He called back weakly.

"Good!" Marrin refocused his energy back into his extraordinary sprint. _Jeez, if I could run like this all the time, I'd win track meets galore! Goo would __never__ outrun me! _He smiled at the thought, but pushed it away. There were more important things on his mind now.

…oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo…

Goo left through the side door, out from the kitchen of Foster's. She didn't know why, but she thought she might as well. It was the easiest to lock, and she decided she wanted to 'check up' on Bloo's misery.

She made sure the door was closed and locked tight, and turned around, not exactly wanting to move from the small porch there. She surveyed the yard, taking in the sweet smells of lilacs from the bush next to her, and fresh cut grass from someone else's yard. The hedge that ran up the property line not too far from her had lost its white blossoms, and was now sporting green little buds that, before long, would turn in to some sort of wild purple berry. The night was peaceful and cool.

To her left, in the back yard, she could see the tree she and Frankie had chained Bloo to. She could almost make out the pitiful shape that was Bloo, lying at the base of the tree. Bloo reminded Goo of a dog. When she'd looked out the window earlier to 'check' on him, been almost surprised to see him sitting down on the ground, arms folded. She'd somewhat expected him to run around the tree one way until his chair ran out, and then run again the other way.

She sighed. _Mac would have loved to see this._ She knew he'd loved Bloo, but Bloo had driven him crazy a lot of the time. She shook her head and laughed a bit under her breath.

Then something hit her. _Mac! The boy in there…that strange boy who asked me about Mar! That's Mac!!_

"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!" The realization hit her like a ton of bricks. She slumped back against the door and put her hand on her forehead. "No way! I can't believe it! I—" she cut herself off, trying to think rationally. "I must have been dreaming. There's no way that was actually Mac…!"

There was a sudden noise. Goo stood up straight, and stiffly jerked around, trying to pin down the noise.

The noise, a rustling sound, came again, louder. She pined it to the bush across the street. As she examined it from afar, she realized something was coming out of it. Something _big_. The 'something big' was now coming towards her, and fast.

Goo was left standing alone, petrified with fear.

…oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo…

Marrin had run for quite a while. He'd actually run 'til he felt his blood cool down, and until he knew his eyes had stopped glowing. Now he walked around aimlessly, pretty much dragging Zayd along with him.

He knew the gangs would be after them. He knew he could outfight them. He didn't know if Zayd could take any more beatings tonight. They'd really done a number on him. Bruises where starting to surface everywhere on Zayd's body, and blood was coming in a slow trickle from the corners of his mouth. Marrin guessed he probably had some broken ribs and most definitely a concussion. Marrin didn't even want to think of the full extent of his injuries; he knew they were all his fault.

Marrin looked up from his wonderings, and realized he was actually standing right in front of Foster's. _Wow, _he thought,_ that's pretty odd. Almost as it someone had scripted it this way…_ **A/n: uh…no comment! –Shifty eyes-**

He looked up at the giant old house. He remembered that when he was Mac, he'd pretty much lived here. It seemed exactly as Mac had memorized it, only somewhat older; cheerless. But he guessed that might just be the darkness.

Marrin stood there in silence for a while, thinking. _I could maybe go in and get Frankie to help Zee,_ he pondered, _but what would that do to Goo with Frankie knowing her secret? What would that do to Frankie and all the other friends knowing Mac has just come back to haunt them? Oh, I hate this!_ He stamped the ground with his foot angrily.

He heard a door open somewhere, and, panicking, threw Zayd into the bush and jumped in after. He peered through the leaves of the bush, trying to find where the sound had come from, and realized to his surprise, that it had actually come from Foster's. Someone had come out the side door, the one that lead in through the kitchen. He squinted hard at the newcomer, and realized she was intensely familiar.

"Goo…!" he whispered.

"Huh…?" Zayd's unintelligible reply came.

"Oh, uh, nothing. Just relax, dude, everything's okay." He hoped nothing further would be said.

"Uh," He moaned and fell silent again. Marrin wondered if he was unconscious or not. He looked back up to Goo. She was just standing there, apparently doing nothing. He wondered, _Maybe I can go back…maybe Goo _will_ take me back. She has to! I need help with this big lug, and she's the best I can do right now. _

"C'mon, Zee," he nudged the other boy carefully.

He just groaned something incomprehensible. He wasn't going anywhere without help. "Okay, then, dude, you do that. And while you do, we're going over and getting Goo."

Carefully lifting Zayd onto his back, Marrin stood up and started walking out of the bush carefully, as to not trip over one of the branches. Walking not being fast enough to suit him, he broke into a run as soon as he cleared the foliage.

_Goo, here I come!_


	15. UtcuwabwjctC 15

A/n:

**A/n: Sorry it's taken me so long to post this! . My July was a living nightmare! For full details go here: ****fostersfan-imp./journal/19515013/#comments****) This chapter's pretty much been done since June, but editing—which should take less than an hour—has been prolonged for months now. .**

**Well, this has been crazy, but the end is in sight. (See, look, its right over there! xD just kidding) But I actually took the time to outline what I want to happen next in the story, and by golly, I realized I only have enough material to fill two or three more chapters. (Four tops.) It's been awesome, guys! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I have! xP**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Good for me.**

Chapter 15: Unable to come up with anything better, we'll just call this Chapter 15, or UtcuwabwjctC 15

Bloo wasn't sleeping very well. Of course, He was sleeping outside chained to a tree, but that actually had nothing to do with it. He could sleep pretty much anywhere, given he had sufficient opportunity to complain about it first.

**A/n: He, he!! Most of this chapter was written in a Driver's Ed car. xP**

No, that wasn't the thing that had woken him. What had woken him were the dreams. For the last four years, he'd continually had nightmares about the crash, about the aftermath, about Mac. Unlike Marrin, Bloo had never stopped having the dreams; he'd just become really good at hiding them from the others. No one but him had any idea what terror he relived every night.

The dreams had seemed to become somewhat of a routine. The ones that were easiest to live with, although they were all horrible, were the ones of the crash. They always went the same way, and seeing as he'd already lived through it once, there generally weren't any surprises.

He would feel the car spinning and twisting. He felt himself hold on to the seat in front of him for dear life, and see out of the corner of his eye Mac holding tight to the panic bar above the window. He would feel the car come to a complete stop, and everything was on hold for a moment; he would look up at Mac and see him start to giggle nervously.

Then he would see the truck; it was big and black and horrifically solid. He would hear the wrenching sound of metal trying to tear itself apart, the crunching of Plexiglas, the horrible screeching sound of steal rubbing up against itself. He would close his eyes, but the sight of the truck hitting their car was etched onto the backs of his eyelids forever. He would feel the world shaking and jolting as if it would be shaken to pieces and kill them, before it suddenly would relent into a quiet, eerie silence.

And then he would hear the screams. The horrible, blood-curtailing screams from the front seat. Mostly from Terrance, he remembered; his words lost in time and memory forever. But one scream he remembered; it would haunt his very existence forever: the scream of Mac's mom. As of the time she screamed, Bloo wouldn't have had opened his eyes yet, but her scream forced them open, and what they beheld was indescribably horrid; the one thing he knew, that if he lived to be a million years old, her scream would never leave his soul.

She screamed Mac's name.

Only once at first, but then again, and again, and again, each time in more of a panic. Every night when this happened, Bloo would try to prolong opening his eyes as much as possible, but he always had to open them. The car would be upside down, all the glass smashed in all around them. He would see Terrence holding his hands over his ears, eyes shut tight, and screaming. He would see Mac's mom twisted back around, her face in shadow, but obviously dripping blood, crying for Mac. And then he would turn and see a wall of metal, mostly obstructing his view of Mac, leaving only a view of his head; but this was bad enough.

His head was a little lopsided now, and his brown hair would be pulled down over his eyes, matted with dark, sticky liquid. His face would be mangled beyond description, and somehow, it would be obvious to anyone who looked at him that he was not but a corps.

However horrible this reoccurring dream was, it wasn't the worst. Bloo had actually learned to live with this one. Yes, it always woke him, but he could usually get back to sleep afterwards. The dreams he _couldn't_ get over were the dreams where it was just Mac. Mac at Foster's; Mac putting the last rubber band on the giant rubber band ball; Mac being a super hero's sidekick; Mac hanging out with the coolest kid in school; Mac helping him rebuild Madame Foster's bust. Over the last four years, Bloo had learned that these dreams, the ones that were just plain, everyday memories, were the hardest kind of dreams to bear.

Tonight was particularly bad. It had started out with the dream of the crash, but when he'd finally gotten back to sleep, he'd had the memory dreams. Images of Mac danced across Bloo's mind, and he felt the terrible sorrow that he'd never see his best buddy again.

And that's what why he was still awake. He curled up in a tight ball to try to ward off the terrible wretchedness that was welling up inside of him.

He'd been lying like that for some time before he heard a noise. He looked up, and saw something standing by the bush across the street from Foster's. He didn't pay too much attention to it. _Probably just some stray kid, not doin' nothing tonight. _He thought.

He tried to curl up in a ball again, but the side door to Foster's came open, grabbing back his attention. Goo came out of the door, and stood on the porch there a minute or two. He squinted at her to see what she was doing. She seemed to be looking for something—_or someone,_ Bloo thought. He continued to gaze at her.

The rustling sound from across the street got his attention again. The shape seemed bigger and more lopsided now, causing Bloo to actually put some thought into what it might be. It started running towards Goo, who didn't move. Bloo raised himself to his hands and 'knees' (or, whatever) in surprise. _What is it doing?_

**A/n: It's HARD to write actions for Bloo, 'cuz he isn't of the same anatomy as everyone else!! He doesn't exactly have hands, and he most CERTAINLY doesn't have legs!! -- Tell me I'm not the only one who's noticed this!!**

…oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo…

Goo didn't know what to do; it was coming right at her! She knew running would be futile now; she'd hesitated too long. _What to do? What to do? C'mon, Goo, think!!_ The thing was practically on top of her, now, and was still coming fast. She looked around for a last minute escape and, not finding one, did the only thing she could do: look back at the creature, scream, and throw a handful of sticks and leaves she'd grabbed from the lilac bush next to her. **A/n: xD something ****I**** would do!!**

The scream was a strangled, almost primitive one of surprise. The thing seemed surprised and faltered in it's footsteps a little. 'It' slowed to a stop right in front of the porch and looked up at her. 'It' gave her a big, funky, familiar grin.

"Hi, Goo," the 'monster' said, a slight giggle in his voice. "I didn't mean to scare you, sorry."

"Mac!" she cried, hoarsely, before correcting herself quickly, "Mar! You scared the living ja-heepers out of me!" She leaned back against the house a bit, putting her hand over her beating heart. "Jeez, you could have said something, you know? Like, 'hey, Goo, it's me, Marrin! Don't wake up the whole world with a crazy-person scream' or something! I nearly jumped out of my suspenders, kid! What were you thinking?"

"Heh, heh, sorry 'bout that, Goo," He replied a bit amused, and a bit distracted. "Hey, you took a couple classes in first-aid, didn't you? What do you know about mugging injuries?" He shifted the weight of the something on his back.

"Uh—" Goo was thrown off by this random question. For the first time, she realized the 'something' he was carrying was a person; a badly beat up person. "N-not much," she stammered, "Why do you ask?" She wanted to clarify her suspicions before assuming the obvious. Maybe he wasn't as crazy as she thought…

"Uh," he said, struggling to lower the person off his back gently tot the ground. "Uh, this here is Zayd; he kind of got mugged, and it was, er, kind of my fault. You wouldn't know how to help him, would you?" Hope, almost desperation, showed through his voice.

Well, he _was_ as crazy as she'd thought. Millions of things were going through Goo's mind right then. _What does he mean 'kind of' mugged? What does he mean kind of _his_ fault? Where the jeepers has he been? And why the HECK does he think I know anything about medicine? _

"Uh, Marrin," she said, a little exasperatedly, "Those 'first-aid' classes were for, like, babysitting and stuff! They told me what to do when a kid under the age of three is choking on a Lego, or something, and how to treat burns, and what to do when a pan of grease catches fire! I don't know anything about _real_ injuries! Jeez, what are you thinking?"

Marrin took the half second she took for a breath to cut her off. "I dunno, I just thought you might know what to do. I think he's hurt pretty badly," He gave her a defeated, sheepish little smirk. "I don't know what to do…"

Goo couldn't help it. She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed. She hadn't realized she'd missed him so much.

"I didn't know you'd be so much trouble when I created you," she said fondly into his neck, where she'd buried her face. "I didn't know I'd ever have this much fun with you."

_Fun? _Marrin thought, confused. _Is this her idea of fun? She's gone loopy!_

"W-why, thank you…I guess?" He awkwardly hugged her back, and moment passed between them in silence.

"Mom would know…" Goo offered, suddenly pulling out of the embrace.

"Know…? Know what?" Marrin was, yet again, thrown by Goo's randomness.

"She has her C.N.A., remember? She's, like, a nurse and stuff? Hello!! Earth to Marrin!!"

Miriam hadn't exactly been a nurse in over 4 years, but—Marrin felt suddenly idiotic at the realization, and for not thinking of it earlier—she did have medical training. **A/n: convenient, no? .**

"Good idea, Goo. Let's go!" He hoisted Zayd back up onto his back while speaking.

The two of them ran together soundlessly off into the night.

_Together._

Marrin liked the sound of that.

…oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo…

Bloo listened to this conversation, more and more confusion building up inside of him.

"Mac…? Mac's alive?" His breath caught in his chest, and his eyes were suddenly as big as dinner plates.

He watched the three disappear around the front of the old Victorian house. He desperately wanted to call them back. He wanted some answers, and he wanted them bad.

"What the heck just happened?!" He rubbed his eyes to make sure he was awake, and hadn't dreamed the whole thing. "What on earth did you do, Goo?"

…oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo…

Marrin and Goo went in their house through the garage. To their dismay, both their parent's cars were gone.

"Oh, crap," Goo, who had entered first, slumped against the doorframe in frustration.

"What?" Marrin said, slightly confused. "Where are they?"

"Mom's still at Aunt Jo's and dad's been gone on some project his work's been making him do," She put her face in her hands. "They're both gone!"

"Oh, crap," Marrin echoed.

"Ung…?" Zayd had halfway regained consciousness on the way back. They both ignored him.

"What should we do, Mar?" Goo looked worriedly up at her imaginary friend.

"Uh," He didn't know. He was angry with himself for not listening when Miriam ranted about TV dramas not being true to life when it came to injuries. She'd complained many times about the inconsistencies, and then would explain the proper treatment for said injuries.

"Lay him down, I guess," He finally said, "ice on his head, clean and put band-aids on his cuts and stuff. That's all I can really think of to do…" He put his hand on his head, trying to think harder. "I've really got nothing."

Goo nodded. "Okay, then," she moved to help Marrin guide Zayd into the house.

They laid Zayd down on the couch in the living room. Marrin got an ice-pack from the freezer, while Goo got band-aids, rubbing alcohol, and Neosporin, and started cleaning the various injuries that he had. There weren't too many, but the task took a good 15 minutes, because Goo couldn't stop asking Marrin questions.

"Why'd you run away, Marrin?"

Silence.

"Marrin?"

"I dunno; I was just angry, and needed to get away from it all."

"From what all?" Goo placed a dot of Neosporin on Zayd's knee.

"I-I don't know," he looked away.

Changing the subject, she asked, "Where'd you pick this guy up, anyway?"

Marrin didn't say anything.

"Mar…?"

"…Around," was all the information he was going to give her at the moment on that subject.

A while passed in quiet as Goo wrestled with a brand new package of band-aids. It had a strong cellophane rapper around it she was having trouble with.

"Jeez, it's not like anyone's gonna wanna steel any band-aids!" She grunted, as she finally managed to rip the rapper off. Another minute passed as she struggled to open the strip.

"Oh…come…ON!!" With the word 'on', she managed to tear through the packaging AND the strip. "Dang it!" she cried in frustration. "I get the idea they don't want you to actually _use_ their band-aids!" She glared at the mess in her hands.

"Yeah," Marrin agreed distractedly, "they only want you to buy them."

Goo managed to get another strip opened and start treating a new cut before she asked another question.

"Uh…" she began, lamely. "Uh, Mar?"

"That's my name." He said, trying to prompt her onward.

"The night you ran away,"

"Yeah?"

"Well, uh, Frankie and I went out looking for you, and…" she cleared her throat.

"…And? C'mon Goo, you've started, now you've gotta finish the question." Actually, the _last_ thing he wanted was for her to finish the question. He actually had a few questions of his own, now. Mainly concerning Frankie and why it was _her_ searching for him with Goo.

Goo put some rubbing alcohol on a particularly bad scrape on Zayd's shin to clean it, before continuing. "We almost ran over Terrance."

Well, THIS was the last thing Marrin had suspected to come out of Goo's mouth.

"He was babbling about some demon Mac,"

Marrin almost started laughing at the irony and absurdity of her statements. "That idiot," he said.

Goo smiled awkwardly and continued. "We went to where he was coming from, and we found this alley…" She paused and looked to him for help, almost begging him to say he didn't know what she was talking about.

Marrin suddenly remembered the dream he'd had back in the fitness center basement. He remembered how vividly he saw Goo find his blood and refer it to Frankie; he remembered even more vividly how Frankie had reacted. He realized it hadn't been a dream, but instead Mac showing him more of his mistakes, trying to guilt him to come home. Mar couldn't help but think, _Curse that kid!_, but instantly felt bad for it.

"You saw the blood then?" It wasn't as much of a question as it was an apology.

"Yeah," she said quietly, putting the last of a series of bandages on Zayd's shin. "Wh-what happened? Frankie told me it was imaginary blood; I take it that it was yours,"

"I found Terrance, too, that night. H-he was about to get attacked by some guys; I had to help him!" He wasn't looking at her, but at Zayd, who was staring awkwardly into the empty space on the couch next to him. He still wasn't focusing on much. "I got them to stop, but then they attacked _me_." He felt the place on his stomach where he'd been stabbed.

Goo didn't know what to say. She waited a minute then said, "What happened then?"

"Oh," he said reluctantly, "one pulled out a blade and got me pretty good right here," he indicated where the punk had stabbed him. "You're imagination works wonders, though, Goo," he tried to make it seem that it wasn't that big a deal, "it healed right up, and I got them to go away. Then I met Zayd there," he gestured to the invalid teen she was sticking band-aids all over, "and, I've been hanging with him for the last few days."

"What were you doing that was so important you couldn't come home?" She asked not looking at him; the hurt showed through her voice. She wanted him to tell the truth about extremeosaurus fighting without her prying it from him.

Marrin, on the other hand, didn't want her to know anything about it. He was prepared to take the secret to the grave with him. "Nothing much," he said. He didn't want to lie to her, but he couldn't tell her the truth about extremeosaurus fighting.

"So, what? You needed a few days separation? Mar, what were you really doing?" She was hurt even more that he wasn't telling her the truth.

"I told you, Goo, nothing!" the lie was obvious, and he knew Goo wasn't falling for it. He wouldn't have bought it _himself_ if he were Goo.

Another long while passed in silence, neither of them wanting to speak. Goo finished up the quick patch-job on Zayd, and sat on a chair on the other side of the room.

"So, what now?" She yawned.

Marrin shrugged. "Nothing much," he looked at her with concern. This week had taken its toll on Goo.

"You should just go to bed. I can stay up with him for a while." She really looked like she needed a good sleep. He felt a sudden pang of guilt that he was the one to cause her wakefulness.

"You sure?" she asked, but she'd already stood up to go.

"Yeah, I'm sure." He gave her the widest smile he could muster; which wasn't very big at all. It seemed more of a grimace.

"Okay, then," she walked to the stairs to leave but paused.

"What?" Marrin asked. "Is anything the matter?"

"Mar," she said, "I saw you that night. I saw you running away from the junk yard. I know you've been extremeosaurus fighting."

Marrin froze. He felt his heart sink and his eyes widen into saucer-sized circles. A moment passed where Marrin was in complete horror. _She KNOWS??_

"Well," she continued, not knowing anything else to say, "Goodnight, then." She went through the door to the stairs, closing it gently behind her.

Marrin was in utter shock. _She _knows_? She knows I've been extremeosaurus fighting and she's let me _live_?? _He stared at the back of the door for quite a while after she'd left.

"What's the matter?" A voice came from behind him in the chair Goo had been sitting in. Marrin jumped and spun around.

"Could you _please_ make more noise to announce that you're actually in the room, Mac?" He had the sudden urge to throw a shoe at the phantom boy.

"Why? That would take away half the fun." He smiled wide.

"So, why did you come _this _time, eh? You just bored, or do you have a dire problem that needs fixing?"

Mac brought his legs up and sat cross-legged in the chair. "A little bird told me you have a big problem, and its name starts with Zee." He raised an eyebrow in Zayd's direction.

Marrin looked over at his unconscious friend and nodded in agreement. "Something like that. And I suppose you can help him?" He meant the question to sound sarcastic, but he was too hopeful that it was true.

"I might," Mac said, innocently.

"Like what?" Mar was no longer trying to hide his eagerness.

"Well, for one, I can tell you he's nowhere as bad as you think. He's just scraped up and knocked a bit loopy. He should be fine by morning. There might be a slight concussion there, but I don't think there's anything to worry about," He smiled at Marrin. "Does that help any?"

Marrin was irrevocably relieved. "Yes, it actually does help a ton. Thanks, Mac."

"No prob." He replied. He stood up off the chair and walked over to Zayd. With a curious look on his face, he put his hand on Zee's knee and swiped it down to his shin. A slight glow was left where his hand had traveled. It was reminiscent of a TV show Marrin used to watch; only, in that, the person who usually did that was a 'reaper', and they were taking someone's soul. The similarities were enough to make Marrin worry.

"Uh," he said and laughed nervously, "What exactly are you doing?"

Intrigued by his own actions, Mac took a minute to answer. "Apparently, I just kinda sped up the healing process in his body. Either way, by morning, he'll be pretty much as good as new." He stared at his hand, apparently enthralled by what it had just done.

"You've never done that before, then?" Marrin was pretty enthralled by it himself.

"No," Mac said, still a little distracted by his hand, "But I've heard of it…" he flipped his hand over to stare at the backside of it.

"Heard of it? From who?" Marrin was intrigued.

Suddenly cured of his fascination, Mac closed his hand and looked to Marrin with a slightly embarrassed face. "That's not important. The thing is, Zayd's gonna be fine. You should probably get to bed." He gave a falsely bright smile.

"But—" Marrin suddenly had dozens of questions for Mac.

"Bye!" Mac cut him off, and before Mar could do anything, he was gone.

Marrin groaned angrily and collapsed on the loveseat. "I wish I could just pin him down long enough to get some actual answers from him!" He put his hand to his forehead.

"Marr…?" a small voice said from across the room.

Marrin looked up quickly, hoping to see Mac there again, but was slightly disappointed to see Zayd looking up from where he lay on the couch.

"Are you talking to someone Marr…?" He seemed exhausted.

"No, Zee. Everything's fine. You just go back to sleep." He felt like Zayd's mom, suddenly. He shook away the feeling.

"Bu—where…where are we?" He looked around groggily.

"Safe; just go back to sleep. Nothing bad's gonna happen here, 'kay dude?"

Zayd mumbled something inaudible and fell back onto the couch, asleep.

_Wow. He really _is_ doing better. He's actually managed to say a whole sentence._ Marrin looked to the clock. It was quarter to four. He winced at the late hour, and suddenly realized how extremely exhausted he was.

Judging Zayd was probably safe where he was for the night, he headed for the stairs down to the basement for his room. Something caught his mind as he reached for the doorknob: _What if Mimi or Dad comes home and sees him just randomly asleep on the couch?_ He scribbled a quick note on the family whiteboard so his adoptive parents wouldn't flip out, and trudged down the stairs, drowsiness overtaking him. When he got to his room, he was too tired to even crawl under the covers. He collapsed on top of the made bed, and fell asleep instantly.

**A/n: Who knew 'band-aids' is an actual brand name!! My new neighbor (while proof-reading this) informed me of this, and now I have to put another disclaimer on here!! I DO NOT OWN BAND-AIDS!! If you'll recall, I own VERY little of this story to begin with, so telling me things I don't own just infuriates me even more!! DON'T ENFURIATE ME, PLEASE!! **

**Anyway, here's chapter 15!! YAY!! And, as mentioned previously in this chapter, the end is nearing! FEAR THE END!! (xD just kidding) Thanks again for sticking with me and the story this long! (ugh, I puked on the hard-copy of this chapter, so I've had to work with puke-sodden paper while editing—reason being I'm very against the wasting of paper. .)**

**Imp**


	16. A Welcome Home and More Complications

**`Disclaimer: hmmm…what if I told you I actually DO own Foster's? I mean, I know none of you would believe me, but, would I still get trouble if I did? Would anyone really care? Well, for this chapter, I'm **_**gonna**_** say that I do and see what happens. If you never get the next chapter, just know that I was arrested by whoever does those copy right laws, and have been beaten with a stick by Craig McCracken 'til discomfort settled in deeply. (Of course, it also might be because I died, or something…who knows? With my luck, I just MIGHT end up dead before the next chapter. I've already almost been taken out by a rock in Moab…Oh, never mind. Just think that I've been kidnapped by the CIA and been beaten by Craig McCracken. It sounds cooler. ^.^)**

Chapter 16: A Welcome Home and More Complications

Sun shone on Zayd's face. He was perfectly willing to bask in it; it felt warm, and he had a slight ache all over his body that was being dimmed a bit by the warmth. He would have continued laying there—not opening his eyes, perfectly peaceful—if the _house_ would have remained peaceful. Instead, he was rudely jerked out of his blissful state by the sound of a pot crashing to the ground somewhere.

His eyes flew open at the sound, and he sat up straight. He was in a strange, non-familiar room, lying in a strange, non-familiar couch, and looking at a strange, non-familiar girl.

"Dang it, Marrin, you woke him up!" the dark-skinned girl called over her shoulder into a room Zayd couldn't see.

"Sorry," the muffled reply came.

_Okayyy, _he thought to himself. _I've woken up in a lot of weird places before, but I think this takes the cake... _

It took him a minute to realize that the girl with the braids sticking out from odd angles from her head had asked him a question.

"Uh…what?" He felt stupid for not paying attention.

The girl giggled a bit at his slowness. "I said," she said, sitting on the arm of the couch Zayd was on, "are you feeling better than you were last night? I mean, you look a whole ton better, but you're still acting kinda slow, and my mom says that sometimes after you suffer head-trauma that you look and act fine, but you can't even tell where you've hit your head 'til someone tells you, and—"

"Okay, enough, Goo; don't talk his head off!" Marr came around the corner, laughing. "You feelin' alright, dude?" he directed his question to Zayd.

"Uh, yeah, I guess," he felt his head, trying to make sense of the whole scene. He didn't feel too bad, but, like the bizarre girl had said, sometimes someone would have to point out your pain before you felt it.

"That's good," Marr came and handed a glass of water to Zayd. "We were worried for a bit, but I guess you really are gonna be alright." He collapsed on the love seat and grinned at Zayd.

"…Where are we? Who's…?" He jabbed his thumb in the girl's direction.

"Oh, sorry, I guess you two haven't really been introduced, have you?"

Zayd shook his head, and the girl said, "Nope!" brightly.

"Well," he stood up and walked over to the girl, putting his arm around her. "This is Goo. She's my creator and—legally—my sister. Goo, I guess you pretty much know that this is Zayd…"

"Yeah, pretty much," she agreed with a wide smile. She punched him lightly on the arm.

"And this is our house."

Zayd's head was spinning with all the new information. "You live…here? She's your sister AND creator? What…?"

"Well," the girl answered for him, "Yeah, I'VE lived here all my life, and since Marrin here looks and grows and acts just like a real human being, we tricked the State into letting us adopt him, and now he lives here, and like he said, LEGALLY he's my brother too, and…" she gasped for breath, because she was talking really fast again. "…I guess he hasn't told you any of this because you don't know this, and if you knew this, then there wouldn't be any sense in me telling you all this, so it's a good thing you don't know this, cuz I'd look REALLY stupid telling you all this if you already knew mphfft..." Marrin clapped his hand over Goo's mouth so she would shut up.

"How much of that did you understand?" He asked Zayd amused.

She'd been talking too fast for Zayd to have caught really ANY of it. "Uh, not much, really…sorry," he apologized to Goo, who had just succeeded in wrestling Marr's hand off her.

"That's okay, no one can really understand anything I say, which I don't really understand, cuz I talk in perfectly normal human English; it's not like I'm talking in some alien Japanese or something; no, I talk in English so everyone should really understand me, especially 'cuz most people who don't understand me speak English too, cuz it's not like mffphpthff…" Marrin put his hand over her mouth again.

"Enough, Goo!" he laughed again.

…oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo…

Marrin had been trying to quietly make breakfast, but the whole 'quiet' part wasn't working out. So far, he'd dropped a plastic cup, a handful of ice, smacked his head on the cupboard, cursed loudly at said cupboard, and crashed into Goo, making her fall over. Goo, being the sport she was, went in to check if Zayd had woken up every time after one of these loud noises was made, but so far, he hadn't.

He had just knocked a stack of phone books off the table while trying to get a frying pan out of the cabinet, so Goo was in the living room checking on Zayd. He finally managed to get one out when he slipped on the kitchen rug, and promptly dropped it again, making the loudest noise of all.

"Dang it, Marrin," Goo's voice floated in, taking an amused tone, "you woke him up!"

"Sorry!" he called back to her. He felt stupid. He _never _had this much trouble being quiet. But this morning was different; all those other times, he was in tip-top shape. This morning, his leg was throbbing, and seemed to be quite bruised. He was trying to hide his limp from Goo, but he didn't know if it was working.

_Ugh, it's not supposed to hurt like this! _ He screamed inside his head. _It's never hurt like this before! I didn't even hurt like this after that guy stabbed me! There's got to be something wrong._

He heard Goo talking at break-neck speed, and thought he'd better go save Zayd from her. She threw people off, especially when she first met them, and he'd usually just let them handle it; but now, with Zayd waking up in a strange place after being mugged, Marrin thought it would be better if he went in and stopped her before she blew his mind.

"Okay, enough, Goo; don't talk his head off." He couldn't help laughing at what she was saying. It was true; their mom DID say that. When he got a look at Zayd's face, he suddenly felt a little worried. It was pale and frightened; he seemed a lot smaller and more pitiful than he usually did. This could be from waking up in an odd place and meeting an odd girl, or it could do that he was still feeling awful. "You feelin' alright, dude?" He asked.

The answer was affirmative.

"That's good, we were worried." The conversation went on as such for a while, and Marrin returned to making breakfast. He got out some pancake mix from the back of the shelf, and a carton of eggs. It'd been a long time since he'd had an actual breakfast. Usually during the summer he woke up at 9:30 or 10, and he'd grab a bowl of BBQ potato chips and vegetate in front of the boob-tube 'til noon came around and there was nothing good on. Today he felt like pancakes and scrambled eggs.

He listened partially to Goo's and Zayd's conversation. Actually, it wasn't much of a conversation; Goo was talking really fast—being so excited—and Zayd seemed to be missing a lot of it. He judged them to be fine where they were.

Marrin was just reaching for a plastic bowl to put the pancake mix when his leg twinged badly.

"Ouch!" He dropped the bowl and grabbed at his leg where it hurt the worst. It was hurting as bad as it had when it had been crushed. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, waiting for the pain to go away, then, suddenly, it did, just as quickly as it had come. He stared at it, infuriated and confused. "What in the…?"

"Marrin?" Goo called from the living room, "are you alright?"

"Yeah," he called back, "fine…" He was still examining his leg. He didn't know what to make of it.

"You sure? You sounded like something got you…" She sounded worried.

"Fine," he repeated, "I'm just fine."

"Okay, then," she sounded not quite convinced, but willing to take this answer.

He incredulously looked at his leg for a few more seconds before retrieving the bowl from the floor where it had landed.

…oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo…

The three of them—Zayd, Goo, and Marrin—were walking along the sidewalk, for the most part in silence, although it was occasionally punctured by Goo attempting conversation, or Zayd giving them directions. They were walking him home; he knew his sister would be freaking out, and had insisted upon it. Marrin was following the directions easily; the path seemed familiar even though he'd never been to Zee's house before.

He was trying—however unsuccessfully—to ignore the pain in his leg. He was also working hard to hide his limp, which wasn't helping him ignore it. Marrin was glad he didn't have to help Zayd walk—other than occasionally steadying him—because he didn't think he'd be able to do it. He was about to say something—ANYTHING to help relive the horrible silence that had settled thick over them when a sudden, horrific twinge shot through his leg. He could hardly contain his cry of pain, let alone keep walking as if nothing had happened.

He didn't know why he was keeping it a secret from Goo and Zee. Maybe he was just so used to not having any physical weaknesses, that having one scared and embarrassed him.

"Turn here." Zayd said suddenly, forcing Marrin to look up from his leg. Zee was pointing to a road not too far ahead of them. Marrin, surprised, read the familiar street sign, although he already knew what it said.

Wilson Way.

Marrin threw a surprised glance to Goo behind Zayd's back. Her face mirrored his wonder.

They turned down the street, and immediately Goo's and Marrin's eyes went to the Victorian towers of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. It was hard for them to look anywhere else. They'd only looked to that house all the years they'd come here, rarely observing anything else on the street.

Zayd seemed oblivious to Foster's; looking passed it further up and across the street. For Marrin and Goo, however, it was a heavy presence hanging thick in the air.

They walked down the street in a seemingly stronger silence than they had before. Marrin and Goo seemed to be avoiding each other's gaze. Zayd seemed to be the only one oblivious to the tension in the group. The whole time they were approaching it, Marrin was trying not to look as if he was looking at the house, but in actuality, he couldn't take his eyes off it. He was contemplating his course of action. Soon the three drew even with the house.

Marrin stopped, staring openly at Foster's now. Goo and Zayd looked back at him questioningly.

"What's wrong, dude?" Zayd, not knowing the history of this place, asked.

"What're you thinking?" Goo asked gently.

Marrin didn't say anything for a minute, but a small, sorrowful smile smeared itself across his face. He made his decision.

"I'm thinking," he said, thoughtfully gazing up at the towers of Foster's; the strange smile was still plastered across his face, "I'm thinking it's been long enough. I'm thinking it's time I go back."

…oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo…

They decided it would be best if Zayd and Marrin waited out on the porch while Goo went in to get Frankie. They settled themselves on the wide porch steps. Neither of them spoke for a while. Marrin just settled himself into his thoughts. He wasn't at all sure anymore about going back to Foster's. In fact, just sitting here on the front steps felt forbidden. He suddenly felt like running as fast and as far from here as he could.

"So," Zayd said, breaking the silence, "why is it so important that you come here?"

Silence on Marrin's end. "Is it alright that I ask that?" He looked worried that he might have asked something illicit.

Marrin sighed and looked at Zayd. "It's okay," he said, finally. "The boy Goo modeled me after used to come here all the time. When he died, Goo was so traumatized, that she created me. Not on purpose, by any means. No, it was a complete accident. She didn't want anyone here to find out, mostly for a lot of complicated reasons, but we both agreed it was for the best."

Zee looked confused. "So, why come back now?

"Because," he said. "Actually, I don't exactly know. Mostly, I guess, because someone important here found out anyway, and it's been too long anyway." He smiled. "I guess I'm homesick."

"But technically you've never even been here before, then." He still looked confused.

"Yeah," Mar agreed, "but this is still home." He sent an awkward grin Zayd's way. He didn't know if that would make any sense at all, but he hoped it did. He didn't know how else to describe it.

The door opened behind them. Marrin spun around to see who it was. Goo walked out and held the door for the person behind her. A tall, red-headed woman walked through the open door. It was Frankie.

Zayd was on his feet in an instant, but Marrin took longer. Timed seemed to have slowed down to a crawl as a billion things shot through his mind. He wanted to run, but his legs held him hostage there. It was a hard enough job standing up, let alone running off anywhere. Besides, he really DID want to stay put.

Frankie was staring at him. H stared right back. He didn't know what else to do. No one seemed to know what to say. The only sounds were the wind, a car passing on the street; a cricket chirped somewhere and an air conditioner started up across the street.

Not knowing what else to do, and wanting desperately to break this awkward moment, he gave Frankie a self conscious smile. Suddenly, all at once, Frankie grinned back at him and got him in a great big hug.

She whispered in his ear, "Welcome home, Mac. It's so good to see you again."

Marrin was utterly surprised. He didn't know what to do. He felt so small in her arms, as if he still were that little boy from so long ago. Somehow, he didn't mind at all that she'd just called him Mac. It was if she had a 6th sense and she knew Mac was somewhere with them.

He was stunned at first that she'd hugged him. He hadn't expected it at all. He slowly put his arms around her too, awkwardly patting her on the back. When she tightened her arms, he realized how much he'd actually missed her embrace, and that bit of him managed to give back a real hug.

"Last time I saw you," she continued, "You were running away from the junk yard. The time before that, you were moving so fast I couldn't really tell who you were, although I did suspect…never mind." She broke away from the hug and stood back to look at him.

They stood there, frozen in time for a minute. For the first time that day, however, the silence that surrounded them wasn't awkward or tense. It was a relaxed, knowing silence everyone was comfortable in.

"So," Frankie said with an excitable grin, "Are you coming inside to re-meet everyone, or are we just going to stand out here like a bunch of weirdo's for the rest of eternity?" she couldn't stop grinning.

Marrin thought for a second. His Marrin-side wanted to leave it off just like that and come back some other time, but his other half—his Mac-side—wanted to stay and never leave again; go inside, make himself comfortable, and get reacquainted with all his old friends.

His Mac-half won out.

"I think I'm going to come it. I miss this place so much. I think I wanna stay a while." He smiled widely at this new discovery. He realized now that BOTH sides of him wanted to go inside now.

A wave of cool air met them as they stepped across the threshold. The same familiar smells from, quite literally, another lifetime washed over Marrin carried by the air-conditioned air. The memories that accompanied these were almost overwhelming. The slight smell of old person and mildew made itself an underlying tone-setter for other smells like the plastic smell that was usually present in the toy aisle of the store that always reminded him of childhood; the smell of good food emanating from the kitchen; even the smell of earth and grass they'd brought in from outside felt familiar.

Marrin couldn't believe it; he'd never felt so at home in his short four years of life.

No one was standing in the foyer at the moment which came as a surprise to both Goo and Marrin. There was usually at least a stray friend mingling in the foyer, if not a whole string of friends.

"C'mon," Frankie said friendlily, "let's go into the kitchen. I left lunch on the stove." She led the group, Zayd and Goo following right behind, but Marrin hung back for a second. Being here still felt somewhat forbidden.

Goo noticed that he wasn't right beside her as he'd been previously. "You coming?" she asked him.

He smiled at her and tried shaking away his doubts. "Yeah," he said. "I'm coming."

By some silent agreement, Zayd, Goo and Marrin all started helping Frankie make lunch, which was Sloppy Joes. Goo and Frankie talked about girl stuff as if nothing was different; as if there weren't two virtual strangers standing there helping them. They discussed recent house gossip, like 'who had the most recent sorry story of abandonment', or 'who just got adopted recently'. Marrin didn't listen to most of this until the subject of Bloo came up.

"...And you would not _believe_ what Bloo did this morning..." Frankie was saying. Marrin's interest immediately shot in her direction, while Goo looked quickly to see his reaction.

Frankie went on with her story of the blob's most recent antics for a whole minute before she noticed anything amiss. "...And so, there was cereal all over the wall, and—what's wrong?" She'd looked up from a pot and saw Goo's eyes fixed upon Marrin, whose eyes were fixed upon her own.

"What," she said, with a self-conscious smile, "Did I say something wro—" then she realized who she was talking to. "Oh..." she didn't know what else to say. "I-I'm sorry, d'you want me to..."

"No," Marrin waved his hand at her; "I wanna hear about Bloo." he smiled, semi-encouraging.

Frankie smiled at him and continued. Goo looked relieved, while Zayd just looked confused. Marrin waved him off with an 'I'll-fill-you-in-later' kind of look

A few minutes into her story, a familiar face walked through the kitchen door.

"Hey, Frankie! Hey, Goo! Want some help with lunch?" Wilt, always looking to help, asked.

"Nope. Thanks Wilt, but," she waved at the group of teens and grinned, "I've got all the help I need. But you're welcome to stay a bit."

Marrin tried to make himself as unnoticeable as possible by busying himself with chopping onions, his back turned to the lanky imaginary friend. Tears sprang suddenly to his eyes, and it wasn't from the onions.

The conversation went on.

"I'm sorry," Wilt was saying, "But I don't believe I've been introduced to you guys." Marrin could hear the trademarked smile shining through his voice.

"These are some of Goo's friends," Frankie offered. "This is Zayd, and over there is Marrin."

Marrin froze. He was at a loss for what to do. He heard Zee say hi, but didn't know if he should do the same.

"Mar," Goo said, obviously annoyed, "Say 'hi' to Wilt!"

He quickly raised his hand in a wave and said, "Hi, Wilt."

Marrin could almost hear Goo roll her eyes. "Marrin!" She was practically whining.

"No, Goo, really," Wilt said, quickly, "Its okay! He doesn't have to say hi if he doesn't want..."

But Goo wasn't listening to Wilt. She was too busy grabbing Marrin by the shoulders and spinning him around to face the imaginary friend.

"Goo, no...!" he protested, trying to stay put. "I-I..." too late. He'd locked eyes with Wilt, now, and it was like a spell had been cast over him, binding him there.

A minute of pure, dead silence passed over them.

"Do...do I know you?" Wilt asked, finally. The look on his face was pure shock and confusion.

"...Kind of," Mar finally relented. He gave a half-smile that seemed kind of hopeful.

Wilt squinted; then his eyes grew wide. "Mac...?"

Marrin shrugged. "Again," he said, quietly, tears sounding in his voice, "kind of."

They explained to Wilt—in as little detail as possible—about Marrin.

"I'm sorry," he said when they'd finished their summary, "but that's one crazy story!"

Everyone agreed.

"So," Frankie said, when lunch was all but ready, "How are we gonna break the news to everyone else?"

No one seemed to know.

"We have to tell Bloo before we tell anyone else." Goo said slowly, but firmly.

"Definitely!" Wilt agreed.

"Totally." Frankie tasted the Sloppy Joe sauce.

Marrin nodded, mutely. He was dying to see Bloo more than anyone, but was also the most scared about it. He had no idea how to do it.

"I'll go get 'em!" Goo grinned, and started towards the door.

"NO!" Mar shouted before he could stop himself. Everyone looked at him, surprised. He, however, was the most surprised of all.

"I mean," he said slowly, "...I don't know. I have no idea what I actually meant." He blushed furiously and stood in silence, looking at the floor. He shuffled his feet.

Goo put her arm gently around him, and he looked up. Her face was bright with a warm smile. "It's okay, Marrin. You can do this." Her smile got wider. "I _know_ you have it in you." The look in her eyes made Marrin almost believe her, and, despite himself, he somehow felt a lot more confident.

"...Okay." He finally agreed.

"Later, though," Frankie said, picking up the pot and heading towards the dining room door. "Lunch is on." She winked.

…oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo…

Zayd and Marrin ate lunch in the kitchen to avoid any unwanted confusion among the friends.

"This is one wacky place, my friend!" Zayd said, taking a bite of corn.

Marrin just nodded. He was too busy thinking about everything to be bothered by the zany goodness Foster's always had to offer. He was going to see Bloo again!

"Hello-o-o-o! Zee to Marr! Zee To Marr! Come in, Marr!"

Zayd started poking Marrin in the head, and Marrin looked up in surprise. He'd been completely zoned out.

Zayd grinned his wide, face-splitting grin. "I _said_, will you please pass the freaking butter!"

Mutely, Marrin did as he was told, and went back to staring at his food.

Lunch seemed to last an eternity. Marrin couldn't exactly tell if this was a good or bad thing, however. He was just plain anxious. Finally, they heard the sounds of friends starting to finish up.

Frankie came into the kitchen once again, but looking very flustered. "You'd better get to Mr. Herriman's office pretty quick, Marrin." Goo came in behind her quickly, bumping into her with the door. "He wants a word with you before Bloo finishes eating. Don't ask me why."

"Hurryhurryhurryhurryhurry!" Goo said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him towards the other door. "He wants you in there NOW!" She seemed really nervous, although Marrin couldn't get a good look at her face. She was moving too quickly.

Zayd got up to go with them, but Frankie intervened. "No, no, Zayd," She said, putting a staying hand on his shoulder. "Goo will be back in a minute. Stay here 'til then, 'kay?" She hurried to follow them, leaving Zayd alone in the kitchen.

Marrin looked back at her, jogging to keep up with them. "You're coming?" He was surprised.

"Yeah," She said, starting to breathe hard, "'Ol' fuzz-butt told me to come too. Like I said, don't ask me why."

Marrin—not looking where he was going; still being dragged by Goo—tripped a little on the hall carpet. "Watch it, Goo! Slow up a bit!"

"No time, Mac," She said, quickly. A bit of his old anger flared up at being called 'Mac', but he managed to push it away.

'_Remember what happened last time,'_ He though, and kept running at her pace.

"We gotta get there before Bloo finishes eating!" She continued in the same breath.

Mar thought up a dozen protests, but knew all of them sounded just like excuses. He decided the best course of action would be to just keep stumbling along behind her quietly.

Goo had the decency to stop and knock before bursting through the door to the rabbit's office.

"Come i—" Mr. Herriman started, before he realized they were already in. "Ah," He said instead, "Right-o, then." He turned to Marrin all business-like.

"I presume you are the imaginary friend in question? Miss Goo, would you mind introducing us?"

Goo, for once, seemed at almost a loss for words. She looked like she was ready to cry. "This Is Marrin, my imaginary friend."

Silence.

What else really was there to say?

Mr. Herriman broke the silence spell by reaching into his drawer. He pulled something Marrin—or rather, Mac—remembered: adoption papers. Marrin was confused.

"Two 'R's, I assume? Mr. Herriman licked the end of his pen.

Goo nodded.

"I'm sure Master Mac—excuse me—Master Marrin will find that not much has changed. He can start right back up where he left—"

"What?" Marrin exclaimed. He was _really_ confused. "What are you talking about?" He looked to Goo, but she almost seemed to be avoiding his gaze. He looked to Frankie, who was looking to Goo and Mr. Herriman, perplexed. He shot his gaze back to the rabbit.

Calmly, Mr. Herriman explained, "I was speaking with Miss Goo over lunch today, and we decided it would be best if you come back and live here. You'll be put up for adoption, just like every other friend here and..."

Marrin stopped listening. He looked back to Goo just in time to see a tear slide silently down her face. She was crying, more at the carpet than anything, and still not looking at him. It was that tear, more than anything, that tipped him off to the fact that '_We _decided' was really an '_I _decided'. His hear wrenched for Goo. He _knew_ she'd never willingly give him up.

"No." He said, cutting off Mr. Herriman's words. He had been saying something about making new and old friends.

"P-pardon?!" Mr. Herriman spluttered. It was his turn to be perplexed.

"No." Mar repeated, firmly. "I don't want to be put up for adoption."

He felt Goo's and Frankie's gazes jerk towards him, but he continued fixing his gaze on Mr. Herriman's eyes.

"B-but—"

"But nothing!" He bent down and put his hands on the desk to be closer the bunny's face. "I made a promise years ago. I said I'd be there for Goo for as long as she needed me. I've already broken that promise once; and it looks to me as if she still needs me." He glanced over at Goo. Her tear-streaked face was one of surprise, admiration, and love. He smiled warmly back at her.

"I see," Mr. Herriman said, dryly. He seemed angry about something, although Marrin couldn't fathom why.

Frankie—who like anyone who defied Mr. Herriman, so long as they didn't make her job any harder—clapped a hand on Marrin's shoulder, and gave him an encouraging smile. She then sent Mr. Herriman a menacing look.  
The door opened behind them, and Wilt's head popped in. "I'm sorry, but Bloo's finished eating, now. You'd better page him before he gets into something. It that okay?"

"That's fine, Wilt. Thanks a bunch." She didn't move her gaze from Mr. H once.

He stared sternly back at her. "I suppose that's our cue to leave, then." He stood up from his desk gracefully.

Frankie took her hand from Marrin's shoulder and followed the rabbit out the door.

He looked to Goo who now had tears streaming down her face, but also was sporting a goofy grin. She threw her arms around his neck.

"Thank you!" She whispered into his ear. She squeezed him tight.

"No prob." He said, and pulled away. "So . . . now what?"

"We're gonna explain this to Bloo a bit before sending him in here to you." She grabbed a tissue from a box on the desk. She swiped furiously at her eyes with it. "Sorry," she said with an all-too-bright laugh.

A mechanical crackle came from somewhere, and Mr. Herriman's voice came through the speaker.

"Master Blooregaurd, please report to my office immediately. We have a most urgent matter that needs addressing." He still sounded angry over something.

"I'd better get out here," goo said; again, it was a bit too bright. She checked herself in the glass of some kind of award hanging on the wall. Looking back to Marrin, she grinned; presumably she was trying to convince herself _and_ him that she hadn't been crying.

With a quick kiss on the cheek, she left him alone in the quiet, empty office. He wasn't all surprised to see the lack of change in this room. Its central themes still seemed to be green and order. It had the sharp sent of ink and paper, and maybe a lingering sent of lavender cleaner.

He heard the rumbling of voices outside the room. Bloo's high voice cut above the rest in an almost spine-curling whine. Mr. Herriman's voice while much lower wasn't quite in the bass range. He seemed to be more of a tenor, but definitely had the lowest voice in the group. Frankie's and Goo's voices were surprisingly similar. Goo's was higher, but for the most part, the voices seemed to dance around each other, merging into one sound now and then.

The strange symphony fascinated Marrin so much that it surprised him when it died. There was silence for a long moment, and then it started up again much, much lower. He fell into it again for another moment, fascinated by the distant harmony it made. He jumped severely when the door knob jiggled and turned.

…oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo…

Bloo was annoyed. No one had come to untie him from the tree until 11:30 that morning. He'd been in a foul mood the whole half hour leading up to lunch, and the whole time he'd been eating lunch. He felt like the whole world was against him, and that as soon as lunch was over that he should wreak complete havoc on the house to exact his revenge against the world. He had some fire-crackers that he'd been saving for a 'rainy' day, and _boy_ was this a 'rainy' day if there ever was one!

He got his arsenal of sticky things (i.e. shaving cream, Squee-Zie-Cheese, butter, hair spray, mashed potatoes, etc...) ready and was just about to unleash his master plan at the top of the highest staircase in the house when the P.A. announcement interrupted him.

You can imagine how incredibly 'thrilled' he was to hear it.

In fact, he _screamed_ with 'joy'.

He stomped angrily down all the flights of stairs, banging everything that 'messed' with him on the way.

Which is to say, everything.

When he reached the office, he found Goo, Mr. Herriman, and Frankie standing just outside of it. They were all looking at him, intensely.

"Wha-a-a-a-a-at?!" he whined.

They all looked at each other, uneasily.

"I didn't _do_ anything!" he took a step back nervously. Their faces frightened him a bit. "It was Coco! I swear, I had nothi—"

"Oh, hush, Bloo. You're not in trouble." Frankie finally said, wearily. She turned to Goo, prompting her to speak.

"Uh, Bloo....?" She said, cautiously.

"Wuzzup?" He said, a little more relaxed, but still on gaur.

Goo didn't know how to start. "Uh, uh...remember Mac?" She could have kicked herself. She winced, expecting utter _doom_ to crush her soul.

Bloo was shocked. He hadn't been expecting anything like this. Suddenly, he remembered last night: Goo leaving Foster's late, and then a most familiar figure charging her. His mouth dropped open. He felt his eyes widen to huge proportions.

Goo, Frankie, and Mr. Herriman were all speaking; sometimes all together, and sometimes in turn. Bloo was hardly listening. He was only catching important phrases like '...Was so traumatized I created another Mac...' and 'waiting in Mr. Herriman's office to talk to you...'; he also caught some unimportant ones, like, '...tried to make your meeting more orderly...' and '...unorthodox at best for it to be in my office, but I suppose it _is_ the best place for such a...' Most of these came from Mr. Herriman, the _king_ of miss-information. Most of these made a part of his self conscious to shout in his head '_Shut UP, Mr. H!!! You're UNIMPORTANT!!!_

The only thing that was actually making much sense in his mind, however, was that right behind that door was one more chance to talk to Mac. That thought kept reverberating around in his mind, until he couldn't look at anything else but that door. It almost seemed to be calling him; drawing him in. He hadn't even realized everyone had stopped talking.

A hand on his 'shoulder' released him from his fascination. He looked up and saw goo's face—tearstained, but smiling—looking back at him.

"You wanna go in?" She asked him, gently.

It was all he could do just to nod. She gave him a gentle push towards the door.

Bloo couldn't ever recall actually wanting to enter this office, but now the draw was too powerful to resist. It felt more like a dream than reality.

He slowly moved towards the door and reached out his stubby arm. Twisting the handle, he thought for a second it was locked, and he felt the pit drop from his stomach. But, with a little more working, he found it twisted easily, and the door permitted his entrance.

The contrast from the dark 'passage room' (for it didn't exactly have a purpose other than a hall to Mr. Herriman's office, and occasionally an extra bedroom when the house was incredibly over-filled) was blinding. Literally. He couldn't see much about the room other than high, sun-revealing windows.

In a moment, his eyes adjusted, and he saw...

Nothing.

No one seemed to even be in the room.

A surge of emotions washed over the blue friend all at once. Anger, hate, and embarrassment that they would play such a cruel trick; confusion and franticness that he might have missed him; and then the pit dropped out of his stomach for the second time in as many minutes as a figure stood up out of one of the chairs in front of Mr. Herriman's desk, and looked at him.

Mac is back.

…oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo…

Marrin stared down at the other imaginary friend. He felt the goofy grin spread wider upon his face. He couldn't stop smiling if he wanted to.

Poor Bloo looked eternally confused. He was looking from side to side, then back at Marrin.

"Bloo," Marrin practically sighed the word.

There was a stunned silence from the blob.

"Bloo...?" Marrin repeated. It was more of a question now. He wanted Bloo to respond. He felt the smile fade a bit.

Still, there was no response.

Marrin wondered what he should say. He didn't know exactly what he's been expecting, but it hadn't been this empty silence.

He opened his mouth to say something—_anything—_before...

"...Mac?" Bloo's voice was soft; almost a squeak.

Marrin's grin regained its former glory. He shrugged and nodded.

"...Kind of; yeah, actually." He rubbed the back of his neck.

Bloo squinted and took a step closer. "...Mac..." he seemed to be trying out the word for the first time since the accident.

Marrin once again considered the question. He _was_ in a way channeling Mac's spirit, or whatever, and he was in some ways still Mac himself. But at the same time, he wasn't The whole thing was just confusing, and he thought the easiest course of action would to just go with the notion that he _was_, in fact, Mac.

Nothing happened for a while. They just stood in silence.

Marrin was afraid, then; afraid Bloo would reject him; afraid it wouldn't work out; afraid he'd want Mac over Marrin.

"Mac." Bloo said once more. It wasn't a question; it was final—a statement. With it, Bloo grinned the same, goofy grin Marrin had sported, dove across the room, and tackle-hugged him.

Just like old times.

Marrin fell to the floor under the hug, and laughed. Bloo was laughing, too. They hugged each other hard; two imaginary friends reunited after four long years apart.

And, truly, for the first time _ever_, Marrin felt completely, 100% at home, and he was perfectly fine with having been called Mac.

The two were so excited to catch up with each other that they could hardly wait for each other to speak. They interrupted one another again and again, trying to tell the other their last four years all at once.

"…I actually went and lived in a foster home for a while. The irony, y'know…"

"…I _finally_ perfected the Windex bomb!"

"…the state _completely_ bought our story, and…"

"…Coco got adopted out, but came back after 6 months cuz their neighbors couldn't stand her. Her kid comes by once a week to…"

"…I have some fireworks left over from the 4th, y'know, if you want 'em…"

"…I'm _SOOOOO_ happy to see you!"

**(A/n: yeah. I don't own Windex. Whatever.)**

Their conversation went on as such for a while before they were so out of breath they could hardly speak anymore.

They were both squashed into Mr. Herriman's big chair, smiling and basking in each other's presence, when Bloo finally asked, "So, why have you waited so long to come back, then, if you're so happy to be here?"

Marrin suddenly felt guilty for doing just that. He sighed.

"I didn't want to remind you guys of Mac, because I'm not him. I didn't want you guys to feel obligated to take me int. He looked away from the blob-like imaginary friend. For some reason, he felt ashamed for this. He didn't want Bloo to look at him.

"Psh!" Bloo slugged him lightly on the arm. "That's a sorry reason not to see your friends!" Marrin looked at him. He was smiling again. "I'm just glad that I have a little bit of him back. I'm glad I have you."

After a while, they migrated into the kitchen, where Goo, Frankie, Wilt, and Zayd were gathered in a tense silence; no one was even looking at each other. When they caught sight of the happy look on Bloo's and Marrin's faces, it seemed as if the whole room—walls and all—breathed a sigh of relief.

"So…?" goo broke out into an enormous grin.

"Best friends forever, baby!" Bloo's wide smile got—if at all possible—wider, and was accompanied with two thumbs-up.

Goo ran over and glomped the both of them at once, so happy was she. She gave Marrin a separate bear hug, nearly smothering him.

Marrin whispered in her ear. "I'm _so_ sorry for everything, Goo. I promise I'll never extremeosaurus fight again!" This surprised him. He hadn't been planning in saying anything, never mind this. He was about to say something else, but he realized now how incredibly true it was.

Goo squeezed him, if possible, tighter, and started rocking them back and forth. Marrin glanced over her shoulder in time to see Mac—standing with a warm, simple smile on his face—turn slowly, seemingly satisfied with something, and walk out of the room into one of his strange fade-outs.

Marrin then made a promise in his head, to Mac, Goo, and himself: _'I will never, ever fight an extremeosaurus as long as I live. You have my word, Mac; Goo. You have my solemn word.'_

"Who's that?" Bloo asked, suddenly distracted. Mar thought he was talking about the figment of Mac, but realized the blob was pointing to the weird, lanky kid in the chair.

"Long story short," Marrin replied, "He's my friend, Zayd. Zayd, this is my—_Mac's_ imaginary friend." He put strong emphasis on Mac's name.

Zayd extended a hand to Bloo, who extended a stubby arm.

"Blooregaurd Q. Kazoo's the name; but, mostly people just call me Bloo. Goo used to call me Chester, but eventually switched to using Bloo." He said all this while shaking Zayd's hand; it turned out to be an awkwardly long hand shake.

Goo flushed bright red, but Marrin just laughed at the memory. They'd both forgotten about that nickname.

"Mac," Bloo turned around with a big grin to Marrin, "I have something I wish to show you up in my room." He said, mysteriously.

They started for the door, but Marrin turned around. "Are you two coming?" He was referring to Goo and Zayd.

Goo made a hesitant face and said apologetically, "Sorry, I'm helping Frankie with the dishes."  
"Too lazy," Zayd said, simply, while waving a hand. He seemed to have taken a light interest in Frankie…or was it Goo?

"Fine, then," Mar smiled. "We'll be right back, then!"

When they were out of earshot from Frankie, Bloo started gushing, "Remember the Windex bomb?" His evil grin nearly split his face in half.

"Yeah," Marrin couldn't keep the smile off his own face. "I seem to recall you mentioned something about perfecting it?"

The blob's grin somehow got wider. "Wanna see it?"

"Uh, _duh_! Totally!" They sprinted off towards the stairs. They were about on the 3rd step when suddenly, they heard a loud roar, and the world around them suddenly felt as if it were going to shake itself to pieces.

"What the heck is that?!" Bloo shouted over the din, holding his 'ears'.

"I…don't know!" Marrin shouted back, covering his own ears.

They carefully extracted themselves from the stairs (they had been knocked down by the shaking and their own momentum), and ran back into the kitchen where Frankie, Wilt, Goo, and Zayd were clutching onto furniture for dear life.

"What's going on?!" Marrin yelled to Frankie

"I don't know!" She yelled back, trying to catch a falling plate while holding onto the counter as to not fall over.

A Godzilla-like roar rolled over them like a train running over a cow; they all had to cover their ears to prevent permanent damage.

"…Sounds like an extremeosaurus!" Zayd called out.

"What?" Goo screamed over a loud boom.

"EXTREMEOSAURUS!!" He cried again.

"Oh-no!" Frankie stumbled to the kitchen window. "One hasn't escaped, as far as I can tell…!"

Another loud boom renewed the shaking in the house.

"It's coming from out front!" Bloo yelled.

They stumbled and tripped their way from the kitchen and towards the front entrance. As they rushed to the front door, they heard a loud scraping of metal and the biggest crash yet. They had to pause and hold onto walls as to not fall to the ground.

They burst through the door, and spilled out onto the porch. To their right was a most terrifying sight: a yellow, mechanical extremeosaurus, nearly 20 yards tall was ripping through the Foster's garage. A horribly familiar figure stood not far behind it.

"Boss!" Zayd gasped next to Marrin.

Mar felt the pit drop right out of his stomach.

**(A/n: Yeah, this abomination is too horridly long. I'm gonna have to either do a ch. 16 part A and B, or turn part of this into ch. 17. Holy heck.)**


End file.
